


we can leave christmas lights up till january

by Neuqe



Category: Red White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston
Genre: Canon Compliant, Christmas, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, Holiday Season, Humor, Idiots in Love, M/M, Slight angst in some chapters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:15:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 60,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27815173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neuqe/pseuds/Neuqe
Summary: My contribution to the prompts of rwrb winter fest 2020, holiday themed oneshots about their lives over the years
Relationships: Alex Claremont-Diaz/Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor
Comments: 411
Kudos: 192
Collections: RWRB Winterfest 2020





	1. Mistletoe

**Author's Note:**

> Day 1: Mistletoe

Late November, 2022

It’s Monday afternoon when Alex fishes out his phone from the pocket of his jeans and chooses HRH Prince Dickhead, completed with the poop emoji, from the contacts list and sends him a quick text.

 _very urgent question, how do you feel about Christmas  
decorations?? _ _4.25 pm_

He pets David, who is curled up against his side. He had immediately jumped to the couch and settled next to him when he had started slouching on it. He probably misses Henry just as much as he does, which is terribly.

David raises his head and licks his hand for a moment before closing his eyes again. His phone vibrates in his hand as he receives a new text.

 _they are nice, not a big fan of tinsel, though_ _4.36 pm_

 _got it_ _4.36 pm_

 _okay_ _4.37 pm_

The text is immediately followed by another one.

 _as in you got tinsel or as you understood  
that I want nothing to do with it? _ _4.37 pm_

 _you shall wait and see_ _4.38 pm_

 _Alex_ _4.38 pm_

 _babe i cannot hear you, I’m too preoccupied with  
covering every possible surface with silver tinsel _ _4.38 pm_

 _I think I hate you a little_ _4.39 pm_

 _I know, but you know what I think? That you also love  
me a lot _ _4.40 pm_

Alex looks up from his phone, but he doesn’t put it away. He scratches David’s neck and looks around the room, thoughtfully, trying to come up with the best plan to decorate their apartment for Christmas. Sure, it is only the last week of November, but he likes to be prepared and early. Also, he really loves the holiday season.

His phone vibrates again.

 _That too_ _4.42 pm_

 _so the crucial question is whether your hatred  
for tinsel or your love for me is stronger _ _4.42 pm_

 _easy question_ _4.42 pm_

 _okay but I need an answer_ _4.42 pm_

 _I love you more  
Do your thing with the decorations _ _4.42 pm_

 _okay, great, I love you too  
Certain changes can be done once you drag your ass back home  
Side note: I miss you _ _4.43 pm_

 _I’m glad you value my input  
Miss you too _ _4.44 pm_

Henry has been away for four days. He flew back to England, to attend two different sorts of charity events and to take care of his royal duties as a prince, which according to him includes a lot more paper work and speech writing than actually meeting people. He had been invited to the opening celebrations of a shelter for trans youth in London, and he was thrilled about it. 

Alex knows that all he does is important, and he is so incredibly proud of him and over-joyed that he can use his fame and wealth for things that actually interest and mean something for him. Causes close to his heart, but he still loathes when he has to leave and fly to another continent.

Longing just gets worse every time and he has to come up with distractions for himself, hence the great decoration plan.

Alex puts his phone on his thighs for a moment and reaches for a small, red-and-white, plastic bag from the coffee table. He pulls out a tiny headband that has comically long, stuffed and soft, reindeer antlers on it. He swiftly puts it on David’s head and snaps a picture.

He laughs out loud as he sends the picture to Henry.

 _He looks equally betrayed and horrified  
and definitely not thrilled  
say hi to him from me _ _4.49 pm_

“Your dad says hi,” he whispers to David, who has jumped off the couch and managed to get the antlers off. They lay abandoned underneath the coffee table.

 _I said  
He already escaped from the antlers, not a big hit among small beagles  
Back to more urgent questions, do you have a beard??? _ _4.50 pm_

Alex had seen earlier today, during one of his quick study breaks, blurry set of paparazzi pictures of Henry leaving a restaurant with Pez, and it had definitely seemed like he had more than a stubble.

 _Yes  
razor malfunction _ _4.51 pm_

 _???  
I had to find out through google alerts, I’m insulted and hurt _ _4.51 pm_

He is not quite sure when he gets over the sheer insanity that so much of their lives is in the public sphere and how he keeps finding out things about Henry’s trips equally much from him and from the news.

 _I will never understand your morbid  
curiosity with the gossip sites _ _4.52 pm_

 _They are the sole source of your face when you are away_ _4.52 pm_

It is not true. They facetime as often as they can when they are apart for longer than a couple of days, but sometimes the time zones and their own schedules clash too hard. This time, so far, they have only managed to facetime once and that was the same day he left their New York home.

Henry has sent him a selfie. It is just a bit blurry, probably taken in a hurry. He cannot make out his surroundings, but it looks as if he is in some sort of corridor. It looks white. It seems that he is wearing a dark blue suit jacket and soft-looking sweater underneath it.

Henry’s hair is a bit of a mess, like a fluffy cloud of hair above his head, and he is crunching his nose. That man is incapable of taking a normal selfie. And surely enough, his jaw and lower parts of his cheeks are covered in a neat, blondish beard.

He looks different, but it is still a good look on him. Alex misses him so much that he can feel a pang in his chest. He sends him a bunch of heart emojis in a text and adds a yet another text to the thread.

 _warms my heart_ _4.57 pm_

He waits for a moment, but he doesn’t answer, and he hasn’t even read the latest messages. He guesses he actually has things to do, but so does he. He stands up and starts carrying the cardboard boxes full of Christmas decorations from the hallway to the living room.

Some of the decorations are his and some of them are Henry’s. Some of them they bought together last year from the sale after the New Year’s. They didn’t really have time to decorate last Christmas, even though it was their first Christmas together, but neither one of them had actually moved in to the brownstone yet.

Some of the decorations are just stuff Alex has bought this year.

He starts by hanging light curtains up to the curtain rod to both windows in living room. He puts a dark red paper star, with small lights on it, to the kitchen window. He puts small lanterns to the living room and bedroom stuffs them with fairy lights. He puts led candles and faux poinsettia flowers all over the house. He puts on a tiny glass angel on display to the living room because he knows it’s important to Henry as he got it from his dad.

He adds some elf decorations he has had since childhood to the kitchen shelves and windowsills. He puts some of the newer decorations to the hallway and to the living room surfaces wherever he can fit them. He even hangs up some mistletoes to every place he can think of and manages to get them stick there.

Just to mess with Henry, he flounces the hallway mirror with thick silver tinsel.

Maybe he has gone just a bit overboard with the decorations, but he is happy with the end result, and at least bathroom has stayed decorations-free-zone and he didn’t put up the Christmas tree yet. It could be a lot worse.

He collapses to the couch again. David is peacefully sleeping on the other end of it. He contemplates whether he should send a pic of the decorations to Henry, but he also wants to see his face when he sees the decorations for the first time. He ends up sending a selfie of him and sleeping David.

He doesn’t answer to that one either, but that’s fine.

He must have fallen asleep on the couch because the next time he opens his eyes, the room is already dark, only illuminated by the various seasonal lights around the room, which provide only the slightest of light and mostly just cast shadows.

He is a little perplexed and sleepy. He cannot remember falling asleep and he has no idea how long he has slept, but he feels instantly more awake and alert when he hears the front door opening.

Logically, he knows he has one of the best and tightest security team monitoring the building around the clock, but still, his heart jumps to his throat until David leaps off from the couch, tail wagging furiously and he squeaks a little bit out of happiness. That’s when Alex realises that the other person who also has the key to their home necessarily isn’t in the country he is supposed to be.

“Hey,” Henry says as he walks to the living room. David is circling around him, excitedly, and Henry crouches down to greet him. The sight makes Alex’s heart hurt out of happiness.

He has already taken off his shoes, but he still has his beige coat on. Alex can see the luggage leaning against the hallway wall. Henry looks up at him and grins. “Surprise.”

Alex mock-kicks him on the shoulder with his feet, but he is grinning brightly. “You asshole, you almost gave me a heart attack. And what are you doing here? I thought you would be gone for days.”

Henry stands up and takes off his coat, and tosses it to the coffee table. He sits next to him and kisses his cheek. “Sorry, love. I managed to do everything I needed and wanted to do, rescheduled some things and pulled some strings. I wanted to come home earlier,” his voice is soft, and he is still looking at him, his eyes full of love.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Alex whispers, cups his face with his left hand and kisses him. It’s soft and sweet kiss. There is no rush and Henry’s lips feel slightly cool against his own. He traces his cheekbone with his thumb and Henry has moved his hand to his back. It’s almost lazy, but it is still full of adoration, and most of all it’s just _welcome home_ wordlessly expressed.

The beard definitely tickles his own face, but he says nothing about it.

Henry pulls slightly away. “Also, I felt the need to come and stop the tinsel invasion,” he deadpans, against his lips.

Alex lets out an amused but exasperated huff.

“There is no invasion,” he shots back, “just very tasteful and carefully chosen holiday decorations.”

Henry leans back onto the couch and tears his eyes away from him. He is probably exhausted because of the transatlantic flight, but it really seems as if he only now noticed that most of the free space in their apartment has been taken up by the decorations.

He blinks slowly as he lets his gaze wander around the living room. He gets up and peers to kitchen and bedroom before he returns to the couch, next to him.

“Be honest, do you hate them?” Alex asks, to break the silence that hangs around them. “If it’s too much—”

“It’s not. It’s perfect,” he reassures, quickly but softly. He points to the window still, “is that a mongoose wearing a Christmas hat and holding a lantern?”

Alex chuckles. He had instantly loved the small Christmas themed sculpture. It has one mongoose standing up, with the Christmas hat and lantern, and next to him there are three smaller mongooses. “Damn right it is.”

“Amazing,” he replies, seeming genuinely delighted by the mongooses, and a laugh erupts from him, “immaculate taste.”

“It might be my favourite,” he agrees, resting his head against his shoulder.

Henry doesn’t move, but his eyes keep examining the room. “Oh, we didn’t have those at the palace,” he says, nodding towards the mistletoe Alex had managed to hang to the lowest part of the ceiling in between the hallway and living room.

“I can imagine,” he laughs, thinking about how scandalized the queen would be at the prospect of kissing anyone because of a plant, “but it’s a tradition.”

Henry glances at him, softly. “Like you would need anymore excuses to kiss me.”

“Who says it’s you I’m trying to get under the mistletoe.”

Henry places his hand theatrically over his chest. “I’m shocked and betrayed.”

“Maybe it’s Pez,” he says, thoughtfully, with a shit-eating grin. “Of course it’s you,” he adds, pressing a kiss on his shoulder.

He takes his hand into his and merely holds it before he brings it onto his lips and plants a bunch of kisses on his knuckles. “Good luck trying to find all of them.”

“There are more than one?”

His voice is a bit coloured by disbelief and it makes Alex smile. He just nods for confirmation and Henry shakes his head in amusement.

“I know it’s stupid,” he admits with a sigh, “but me and June watched a bunch of Christmas movies every year and for some reason I really liked the idea of mistletoes.”

Obviously, not all of the Christmas movies were the pinnacle of romance. Some of them were pretty horrific romance-wise. The instant love and the sheer amount of miscommunication. The stories usually included exclusively straight romance, but despite their flaws, they were full of happiness and love. They were fluffy and everything always ended happily. Mistletoes usually played a big role in the process of getting to the happily ever after.

He knows it’s all fiction and unrealistic, but he needed that bit of movie magic when growing up, listening to his parents fight and when the inevitable, yet neat, divorce rolled around, he wanted to believe different sort of love existed.

“I always had this idea that once I lived with someone I love, I’d fill the place with mistletoes,” he adds, “and I felt a little sappy when you were away.”

“That’s not stupid,” Henry declares and gets up. They are still holding hands, so he pulls him up too and determinedly walks, dragging him with, underneath the mistletoe he just spotted. He even glances up to check that they are directly beneath it.

“I’m just happy that you deemed me worth to be part of that dream,” he says quietly, but it sounds as if he means it from the bottom of his heart, “and I solemnly swear I will kiss you every time we happen to be simultaneously under these poisonous plants you have hid,” he says, now with genuine and light laughter.

Alex feels as if he is just falling in love all over again. He has known for so long that he is in love with him and occasionally the force of his own love catches him by surprise. There are moments when he thinks that he possibly could not be more in love with him, but then he discovers new levels and depths of his love.

This is one of those moments.

“Sorry for making our lives like a b-class hallmark movie,” he attempts to joke, but his voice is strained with emotion.

“I will gladly live through re-enaction of a hallmark movie for a month if that makes you happy,” he says, cheerfully and effortlessly, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

He is still holding his hand, and Alex cannot possibly do anything else expect kiss him again. He has his hands in his neck and his fingers are brushing against his scalp at the base of his skull. Henry has his arms tightly locked around him, and he can feel him tracing the edge of his shoulder blade. The kiss itself is a lot more enthusiastic than the previous one, and his lips don’t feel cold anymore. They are warm and soft, and Alex is getting a little breathless.

Henry eventually pulls away slightly, but he keeps resting his forehead against his.

“But I’m getting rid of that tinsel,” he whispers, and he can feel the breath on his skin.

He chuckles. “Please do. It’s fucking hideous.”


	2. Hot chocolate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 2 already! Thank you so much for all who read and left kudos and comments to the first chapter, they mean a lot!

Early December 2021

It’s a lot colder than any of them expected for the early December.

Alex tries to absorb as much heat as possible from the tiny cup of hot chocolate that one of the volunteers of the event just gave to him, but the wind is ruthless. It makes his cheeks sting, and the hot chocolate is already lukewarm at best when he sips it carefully.

Despite the awful weather, the children’s hospital’s yard is packed with people who keep talking to each other excitedly. The lights are on in multiple windows of the hospital and he can spot small figures looking outside from the windows.

Maybe suffering at the mercy of the wind isn’t that bad after all.

“Nervous?” Henry asks, as he sips his own drink.

“No. I mean, it’s just turning on the holiday lights. I just press a big red button,” he replies with a chuckle.

He had been honoured when the board of the hospital had asked him and June to come and turn on the holiday lights at the hospital’s yard. Sure, it’s just a small thing, but the kids adore them, and they cheer people up. Some of the children have waited for the lights for weeks and Alex has to admit, the lights system does look massive.

There are cords everywhere and scaffolds to support them and the lights. There is even a massive spruce in the middle of the yard, and he supposes there are lights on it, too. There are various other structures all over the grass field between the hospital and the parking space, but Alex cannot tell for the death of him what they are supposed to be without the lights on. Or his glasses.

“Yeah,” Henry agrees, trembling only slightly as he tries to move a little. He is probably freezing, too.

He hadn’t been officially invited, but he still wanted to come, to support him, and all charity events related to children and hospitals are close to his heart. He had already talked to bunch of children who had been well enough to come outside to see the switching on of the lights.

Alex stands on his tiptoes as he tries to look over the crowd to spot June, but he doesn’t see her. He quits tiptoeing, but he greatly miscalculates where his feet used to be because he lands on one of the thick and massive cords on the ground. He doesn’t outright fall down, but he loses his balance, for a moment, quite spectacularly before he gains it again, but in the process of not falling down onto his ass, he manages to spill the remaining of hot chocolate all over him.

He looks down to his coat, horrified. It’s a thick wool coat, so it doesn’t soak through. The colour is light grey, unfortunately, because the stains of the hot chocolate are a lot darker and clearly visible. He looks finally up to Henry.

He, very unhelpfully, is snorting and covering his mouth with his hand, obviously trying to stifle down laughter. “Sorry. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, it wasn’t hot,” he says, trying to wipe the stains off with his hand, but it only makes them look smudged and soak deeper into the fabric. “This probably isn’t the best look for public appearances, though,” he mutters, “Zahra is probably going to murder me.”

“Look at the bright side, at least there were no wedding cakes around, or that you didn’t fall into that enormous Christmas tree,” the amusement is shining through his voice and his grinning widely at him, “or you didn’t bring me down with you.”

“Shut up,” he says, but there is no heat behind his voice, and he cannot prevent the smile creeping onto his face too, “I wasn’t this clumsy before you came along.”

That’s not strictly true. He has always been a little disaster prone, but he didn’t cause PR scandals with his clumsiness until the infamous wedding cake incident.

“Are you suggesting I keep swiping you off from your feet?” He asks, and grins into his cup as he sips from it.

Alex rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, you make me go all weak in the knees and all that, babe,” he says, just half-jokingly, as he fishes out a napkin out of his coat pocket and tries to swipe the stains with it, but it has no visible effect.

He sighs deeply.

“They should just crown me as the clumsiest first offspring who has ever lived,” he remarks, “and this exactly looks like I spilled my own drink,” he adds, thinking about how off-balanced they will look with June, as she probably looks stylish and dapper, without any beverage stains.

“Hmm, if anyone could trip over their own feet, it would be you.” Henry holds his cup a little further away from himself and undresses his scarf with one hand and hands it to him. “Wear this, it should cover at least some of the stains,” he says.

The scarf is long and soft. It’s dark blue, almost cobalt, and it is really thick. Alex wants to protest, because he is already freezing and now, he is stealing his scarf and he has nothing to give him back. Henry keeps looking at him expectantly and he looks surprisingly determined.

He sighs again and wraps the scarf around his neck. It immediately feels warm against his skin and it smells distantly like him. He feels strangely safe wearing his scarf. He tries to adjust the ends of the scarf to cover as much of the stains as he can, but there are too many of them and they are spread all over his chest and stomach.

“It looks good on you,” Henry says, softly, with a warm smile.

Alex opens his mouth but abruptly closes it again because nothing would have prepared him for what he does next. Henry stares at his own cup of hot chocolate, as if contemplating something, then he grimaces slightly, but it lingers on his face only for a second. Then he just throws the remaining of his hot cholate directly at his own body.

Now, his jacket is also covered by splashed stains of hot chocolate. They are visible too because his coat is more of the shade of light mauve. Alex cannot stop staring at the small droplets that keep soaking into the coat.

“What?”

“Best case scenario, people think somebody threw, accidently or not, hot cholate on us, thus we are blameless,” Henry explains with surreptitious smile, “or at least, we will look dumb together.”

Alex is still little speechless. It warms his heart incredibly much that he was willing to do that for him. Obviously, it is not a huge gesture, but he appreciates nevertheless, because he knows how much public appearances mean in his position too, and that the palace probably won’t be thrilled with him, either. But that is why it means so much, because he was willing to do all that just for him to feel better.

“You’re staring,” he points out matter-of-factly, but he does absolutely nothing to get rid of the stains.

Alex snorts. “I’m just contemplating how I ended up with you,” he says, and takes his hand in his, “and how I simultaneously ended up so lucky.”

He chuckles lightly and squeezes his hand. “If we are being honest, at least one of those things is attributable to combination of your poor balance and feet coordination.”

“You’re awful,” he says, deadpan, and Henry bends down slightly to quickly kiss him.

“You didn’t really have to do that,” Alex says, vaguely gesturing towards his hot chocolate stained coat, in a quiet voice.

“I know, but I wanted to,” he answers simply, and his voice is soft enough that it almost drowns under the Christmas songs that are playing in the distance.

The corner of his mouth twitches into a half-smile. “Thank you,” he says, genuinely, and brushes the back of his hand with his thumb.

He guesses it is a one sort of definition of love. To be willing to do stupid stuff to make the other one to feel better, even if it requires to sacrifice a tiny part of one’s own dignity. It is the sort of thing that Alex never expected when he used to think about love, but now that he has it, he loves it. He loves knowing that Henry has his back, in small and huge things.

“My pleasure,” Henry replies, “we are a team,” he adds, as if he was reading his mind, “and I don’t mind looking daft if it is with you.”

Alex has no change to reply because June emerges out of the crowd, followed by her security staff, and her gaze darts between their coats and faces. She looks mildly horrified.

“What happened? Did somebody throw hot chocolate at you?” She asks, looking around as if she could catch the culprit from somewhere.

Henry lets out a very undignified sound, which makes him sound as if he was suffocating. “Er, not really,” he adds, very unhelpfully.

“Then what happened?” She insists.

She looks stylish and her whole stain-free look makes her seem more put together and neater than Alex currently is feeling. Her coat is black-and-red plaid, and she has a matching hat. Her hair is completely windswept but still, somehow, it manages to look like she meant it to be this way.

Alex doesn’t even want to think about the state of his own hair.

“It’s a long story,” Alex says with a grin, but June sees through his bullshit.

She keeps looking at them and squints her eyes. She remains quiet but points at Alex with her index finger. “Let me guess. You spilled your own drink on yourself,” she says and now points her finger at Henry, “and you spilled your drink so that he wouldn’t feel left out or stupid.”

“Uh, yeah.”

June starts to laugh and buries her face into her hands. “That was a joke. Oh my God, you guys are so dumb. You could have just switched the coats or something like that.”

“That didn’t really cross our minds,” Henry admits thoughtfully.

June just keeps chuckling. “You are really made for each other, two halves of a whole idiot. Also, we have to go soon.”

Alex chuckles a little too and Henry tries to flatten one or two of his unruly curls that have gone even more rogue because of the wind, but Alex knows it’s a lost cause, but he appreciates it still. Henry leans to kiss his forehead and as he leans in, he whispers to him. “Don’t fall down the stairs, love.”

Alex just glares at him as June ushers him towards the stage and they leave Henry to chuckle alone.

The stairs to the make-shift stage are steep, but he doesn’t fall down, thank you very much. The crowd, however, seems a lot bigger than he had anticipated. One of the volunteers finally gives them microphones and they walk to the middle of the stage, in front of the light board and the red button. They both wave at the crowd.

“Hello!” June greets them and people are clapping. The Christmas carols are still going on in the background.

“We’re so honoured to be here with y’all. We know it’s cold and we all want to see the lights so we will keep this short,” Alex adds, and gives his brightest smile to the crowd.

“We wish you a happy holiday season and happy new year 2022,” she says, and more people cheer.

“We hope you get to spend it with your loved ones,” he says, and he lets his eyes wander on the crowd, realising only seconds after that he is unconsciously looking for Henry in the crowd.

“And if you’re able, please donate to the hospital’s cause to help the small patients during the holiday season and next year,” she sounds as earnest as she is and flashes her warmest smile to them.

People clap, but the sound of it is muffled because so many people are wearing gloves and mittens. They give their microphones away and push the button together. There are a few seconds that are full of expectancy but then the lights turn on.

Alex has to admit that the yard does look pretty. The huge Christmas tree is covered in red, blue and green lights, and it looks pretty garnish, but the children seem to like it well enough. There are vine lights around the main entrance and there are illuminated paper stars on multiple windows. The figures he couldn’t recognise earlier turn out to be bunch of reindeers and a sledge. They glow in slight blueish light. The streetlamps of parking lot are connected to each other with more hanging vine lights.

People keep pointing at the lights and children run to examine them closer and the happy chatter has returned. June keeps staring at the lights above them, but Alex finally spots Henry who is beaming at him. The stains on his coat look absolutely horrifying under the bright lights, but he couldn’t care less.

He smiles back at him and he is so in love that it almost hurts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this brought a little joy to your days!  
> All the mistakes are mine and I have no excuses for my poor humour


	3. Knitting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 3 is here! This was fun to write because I love knitting

Late November, 2022

Alex knows he has reached a new level of stress when restores to google how to manage stress levels. Scratch that, he hasn’t reached a new level of stress. He has been a lot more stressed out before, especially during high school and college, and those depths of stress hell he doesn’t want to ever reach again.

Yet, he knows how his brain works and he can feel that the stress and anxiousness are creeping up on him. The way his mind keeps going back to the unfinished assignments, constantly nagging at the corner of his mind how to improve them and how to word certain sentences. He even keeps having dreams about them and waking up in the middle of the night to scribble down his ideas. The way tension has crept back into the base of his skull. The way falling asleep has become harder and harder by each night. The way his caffeine intake has increased to levels that cannot be healthy.

But this year, he wants to be prepared. He wants to be on top of things and manage his own garbage brain that keeps making him be stressed out and forces him to bury himself into his workload. He wants to show everyone, mostly Henry, June and Nora, that he can handle the end of term without too much hassle and in a healthy way. Convince them that they don’t need to stage an intervention, because he is damn capable of taking care of himself, thank you very much.

Google suggests he should take up a hobby where he could see the work of his hand immediately. It does sort of make sense. Seeing what he has done could create a sense of accomplishment and trick him into believing that he is being productive and effective, even though he is relaxing.

Most of the suggestions are crafts and he decides to pick knitting because it seems straightforward enough. It is merely some yarn, knitting needles and creating some loops. He watches a couple of introduction videos and it seems easy enough.

Turns out, he is so wrong.

His stiches keep falling and he accidently keeps creating new ones, and the yarn gets somehow knotted at some point and it is just incredibly frustrating.

“Why does it sound like you are butchering that yarn with the needles?” Henry asks, amusedly, as he walks into the living room and glances at the mess of yarn he has managed to create in the last half an hour.

“I’m not, I’m relaxing,” he says, but his voice sounds strained to his own ears too, and places it on his lap. He used the first bundle of yarn he found, which happened to be grey, and the few rows he has managed to knit are uneven and some of the stiches are tighter than others. It even has a small hole in the middle.

Henry sits next to him on the couch and picks up his work. He examines it a little closer. “It’s good for a first try.”

Alex pumps his knee against his. “Quit it. I know you, I know when you’re lying,” he says softly and leans against the couch cushions.

He hums a little. “Admittedly you do have a little peculiar technique,” he says, giving the knitting work back to him.

“Fancy way of saying I have no clue what I’m doing,” he remarks, “I tried watching the video, but the lady on it does the steps and hand movements so fast and the written instructions were just incomprehensible.”

“I could teach you,” Henry suggests as he picks up a knitting needle from the floor. Alex had no idea it was even there.

“You would really do that?” He asks, only slight edge of disbelief in his voice.

Not that he would think that he would be a bad teacher, but usually people lose their nerve with him when explaining or teaching something new to him. He has a habit of asking a bit irrelevant questions just because he wants to understand. He gets a bit frustrated when failing or if he doesn’t learn the thing immediately and if he is bad at it, his concentration just vanishes.

His face softens a little. “Sure, love. It has been a while since I’ve knitted anything, but I’m quite sure I can teach you the general gist of it,” he says, and reaches to the basket full of yarn and knitting needles that Alex had found from the basement.

Alex abandons his previous mess and picks up new bundle of yarn. “Who taught you to knit?” He asks, curiously, as he keeps comparing the needles, probably trying to find two of the same size.

“Grandma,” he says, and he keeps a pause as if he was considering what to say next. “She taught all of us. Phillip was just terrible at it and Bea wasn’t that interested, but, uh, I liked it. Partly because it was something that I had in common with her. I felt like we connected when we knitted together, even if we weren’t really close.”

“Oh,” Alex says, half-involuntarily. He knows, of course, that Henry and she doesn’t have the best relationship and him living in America has put even more strain to it, but at least they are both trying. But still, he doesn’t talk about it or her that often. “Thanks for trying to teach me.”

“Every couple needs their hobby,” he says, with a brilliant grin, and his eyes are gleaming with happiness.

“We have become an old married couple, despite the fact that we’re in our twenties and unmarried,” Alex groans, but nudges him affectionally.

He just rolls his eyes before demonstrating how to create loops with one needle. It is simple enough, it is the one thing he managed to on his own, too.

“Great,” he says, and picks up his thread of yarn and settles in between his fingers, so that it goes over index and ring finger, but goes under the rest of them. “This makes it less messy.”

Henry demonstrates how to do two different kind of stiches, which seem to be practically one stich, but the other one is reverse of it. Alex observes carefully and tries his best to mimic his hand movements, but it takes a few tries before he gets the hang of it, and even after then he messes up them a couple of times.

Henry is surprisingly patient teacher. He shows what to do again and again. He undoes his messed-up stiches and gives tips, but he doesn’t even try to micromanage his work. He doesn’t point out his mistakes. He just lets him work on his own, and helps if he has questions.

He also kisses him when gets something right or realises where had went wrong, which is also pretty great incentive for learning. Admittedly, at the times, there is more making-out than knitting happening, but it is still fun.

“This doesn’t look right,” Alex murmurs, and dumps the needles and whatever he has managed to knit to Henry, who starts laughing.

“What have you done to this?” He asks, amusement clearly shining from his voice, and he is grinning as his gaze darts between the knit work and Alex. “Okay, I think you skipped some stiches here,” he says and points about the middle of his work, “and you possibly changed direction on this row,” he says, now pointing the odd twist and knot below the knitting needles. “I don’t know how this is even possible.”

Alex shrugs, as he watches Henry attempting to fix his work. He seems be unknitting his work, but it starts to look more what it is supposed to be. “It’s a hidden talent.”

Henry rolls his eyes at him, fondly. “I don’t know who taught you to knit,” he deadpans.

“I’ve a great teacher,” he declares, and starts to place soft kisses along his jawline and neck, “just a little distracting.”

Henry just hums happily, pauses his fixing attempts to kiss him. It’s a slow kiss and it is a little difficult to keep kissing because they are both smiling, but they don’t mind about that.

And after ten minutes he returns his knitting work to him, and all the weirdness of the stiches is gone. Alex accepts it gratefully.

In the end, he manages to knit a small kettle holder. It’s red and definitely uneven from the left side and little lumpy. It is not the most beautiful kettle holder the world has ever seen, but Henry ties it off and places it on the kitchen counter. Alex is a bit proud of it.

He had fun, he didn’t think about schoolwork too much and he got to spend time with Henry. He seems happy, too, and like he genuinely had great time, and that he is proud of him.

So, it becomes a thing.

Every time he feels particularly stressed, he starts knitting. It happens a lot the closer to his deadlines and exams he gets. Henry knows, or learns, that knitting means he is getting anxious, and most of the time he sits with him. Sometimes he reads or writes something on his laptop. Sometimes he knits, too. Almost every time, he is there to help him or advice on the trickier parts.

He is still slow, but due to his increased stress levels, he advances on his little project, and on the Christmas morning, he gives Henry a red and blue scarf. It is still not the prettiest creation, slightly uneven and lumpy, but it has only few holes and it has some great parts, too.

He gives it mostly as a joke, but Henry loves it, and insist wearing it, and it warms his heart more than he could ever describe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> English isn't my first language so I'm sorry if the knitting terms are little odd or off, but I hope you liked this one too even if this a little short and lacks pretty much any sort of plot


	4. Cold hands

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day four! This was so much fun to write once again and thank you everyone who has been reading this!

Early december 2021

Alex notices that Henry grabs his coat and slips out one of the side doors into the dark DC night, but he doesn’t follow him immediately.

He wants to give him his space and a moment of quietness, even if he is a bit worried about him.

They are at the White House, having a small family dinner, since they are all in town simultaneously. Henry had seemed all normal during the dinner, but as soon as they had finished eating and moved to the living room, he had excused himself and disappeared.

He tries to focus on chatting with mom and Leo, but his mind is preoccupied and he keeps humming, nodding and agreeing absentmindedly as they presumably talk about the upcoming Christmas preparations, but he keeps glancing at the direction of the door.

“Go check on him,” her mom eventually says, as she nods towards the door, as if she could have read his thoughts. Maybe she can, she has always been awesome at knowing what each of them needs.

Alex wonders if she saw the same piece of column as they did earlier today, or if she is just that good at reading them without any context.

Anyway, Alex practically darts out of the room, only pausing to grab his own jacket from the backrest of one of the armchairs. He puts it on as he steps out of the door, thinking that he probably has to search for him, frantically already going all the possible places in his mind, but he almost walks into him, as he stands near the door, looking at the lawn and the city that stretches out behind the fences.

Alex wraps his coat around him a little more tightly and closes the door with slightly more force than necessary, just to let him know that he is there, too.

Henry doesn’t move as he walks up to him and slips his hand into his and slowly intertwines their fingers. “Fuck, your hands are cold,” he exclaims as he feels the smooth and cold skin of his palm against his own.

“You don’t have to hold my hand,” Henry says, with an amused huff, “I forgot my gloves inside.”

“Lousy excuse, your hands are always cold,” he mumbles, but he doesn’t pull his hand away. He forgot his gloves somewhere, too, but the evening isn’t that cold. “And luckily for you, I’m a human form of radiator, I’m gonna warm you up,” he says, squeezing his hand a little tighter.

Henry smiles at him, but it is strained. “Sorry for leaving,” he says, and moves his gaze to the lawn that has been covered by thin layer of snow, which is probably gone already in the morning.

“It’s okay,” he reassures, “you didn’t miss anything too important. Nora and June disappeared too, and mom and Leo corned me with the Christmas ornament plans, very thrilling.”

Now, he is glancing at him, again. His eyes are gleaming, but they seem to be so full of love, but it is still a bit overshadowed by sombre. He leans a little closer to kiss his temple. “I’m sorry about the article, love.”

Alex knew that the article was the source of Henry’s sour mood, but he had thought he had been more upset by the implications of it rather than that he would have taken offence on his behalf.

One of the major newspapers in the UK had published a column by some idiotic conservative columnist about what a international politics hot mess their relationship is and what are the chances that Henry should abdicate if their relationship would ever become more official.

“Hardly your fault,” Alex points out softly.

The whole argument was that even though neither one of them is the head of the state, nor has any political power, they are still too closely associated with the actual heads of the two respective countries and that poses a conflict of interest.

Alex almost wanted to laugh when he skimmed through the column, as if the hundreds of years old USA-UK official relations were so weak and unregulated that their love could mess them up.

“Still,” he says, quietly, but insistently, “I wish I could protect you from all that,” he admits.

The more Alex thinks about it, the more it makes sense that Henry got upset about the things written about him in the article. It was plainly obvious that the columnist wasn’t the biggest fan of Alex. The article was written in a way that it made it seem as if the biggest issue about their relationship was Alex’s future aspirations in politics, but between the lines it was hard to tell whether his biggest sin was being an American, brown or bisexual.

“It’s nothing I wouldn’t have heard before,” he says, clenching his jaw, but it is the sad truth. He hadn’t been that offended, mostly he had been just worried if Henry got upset. Obviously, it wasn’t fun reading all that, but he had developed a particularly peculiar relationship with the press where he just tries to shrug most of it off, even though he keeps reading the articles and columns.

It might not be the healthiest way of coping with it, but it is working. At least for now.

“That’s—sad,” he says, with a sigh, sounding defeated.

Alex merely nods, but he turns towards Henry. He tilts his head to the side as he studies his face. “You know that I would never ask you to choose between me and all of that, right?”

It is important for him that he knows it. He knows Henry, and he isn’t always so fond of being a royal, but it still holds significance for him and outright asking him to abdicate would feel like forcing him to abandon everything, his family, homeland and childhood. It wouldn’t be fair, and he would never do that to him.

“I know,” he breathes out.

“Good.”

Sure, everything would be a lot easier if they were just two regular people instead of a prince and a first son, but it’s their lives and Alex wouldn’t really go changing anything in it. Besides, they have been promising each other forevers for a while now, and for him, it means that he is in it for the long haul.

And being in it for the long haul, means for him, that he is going to stand on his side, no matter what, and suffer whatever consequences the world might throw at them.

Besides, everyone in this world has their own baggage. Maybe love is just realising and accepting that, and loving them just the same anyway, and just helping them with, as much as possible.

Henry exhales. “You would have every right to do so, though.”

He shakes his head. Sure, the article had some valid points. It will be a political fiasco if he runs campaign for any legislative part of the government while he is still with Henry, even more if they are married at that point. It will be a damn textbook example of conflict of interest. The equation of having both Henry and a glorious political career seems a bit impossible, but he isn’t too stressed about it. He likes the law school, and he could try to find some loophole in the whole system.

It is a bridge they will cross, and possibly burn, when the time comes for it.

“It affects you, too,” Henry says, slightly tentatively.

He has a point, but most of the effects are in the future. The Palace begrudgingly threatens to make him a duke if they get married, and keep reminding him that he should start some sort of etiquette education and they keep sending him hilariously polite but passive-aggressive emails every time he does or says something in public that doesn’t fit the public image of royal family. He cannot imagine how much worse they will be when they actually get engaged.

“Maybe,” he says, with a half-shrug, “but I still wouldn’t do it. You are worth all of the trouble and bad stuff, too.”

Henry’s face melts into a small and delighted smile as he closes his eyes. “If there ever was anyone for whom I would do it, it’s you.”

Logically, Alex knows this, and he has known for a while. They are at that point in their relationship that it is becoming increasingly difficult to imagine a future without him, and that also means that he would do anything for him. But it is still a different thing to hear it.

It’s almost terrifying and thrilling to know that they hold that kind of power over each other.

“Yeah.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Thinking about it is giving me headache,” he groans.

“We don’t have to talk about this now,” he points, out softly, planting a kiss on his left cheek.

Henry nods.

Alex has been holding his hand for all this time, but now he picks the other hand, too. He holds them in between his own. “We can focus on how unnaturally cold your hands are,” he remarks.

His right hand is a bit warmer, as he has been holding it, but the left one is cold as an icicle.

“Not that cold,” he argues, softly and pulls his other hand away to cup his face. He lets it linger against his jawline for a moment before he grins and lets it slide against his neck towards his collarbone.

Alex yelps because his hand truly is freezing cold and stammers away from his touch immediately. “Nope, no, not doing that,” he exclaims, but Henry is just laughing.

Alex crouches down to scoop a handful of the wet snow and makes it into a makeshift snowball and throws it at him. It lands on his arm and falls apart on impact.

Henry is now laughing even harder, with his whole body, but he still manages to pick some snow and throw a counterattack snowball at Alex. He barely manages to avoid it.

“Oh, it’s on,” he says, now laughing, too, and as he forms another snowball that eventually hits Henry on the leg.

They keep going, making more or less formed snowballs and throwing at them at each other with accelerating speed. Most of them miss because they don’t really spend time actually aiming at anything, except the other’s general direction. The fact that they are shaking with laughter isn’t really making the aiming any easier.

Still, some of the snowballs don’t miss their target. Alex gets hit multiple times on his stomach and on his arm. Henry gets one on his neck and multiple on his left side and leg.

Alex can feel that his coat is getting soaked and Henry’s coat is already covered in half-melted snow. They have managed to scoop most of the snow around them away and have revealed the grass underneath it. Henry almost slips on the wet grass and it makes him laugh even harder, and eventually he is almost wheezing as he leans against the wall of the White House and holds his hands up.

“Truce,” he breathes out in between the spontaneous spurts of laughter.

“Truce,” Alex agrees as he leans against the wall next to him, and wipes away tears of laughter away from the corners of his eyes, as he tries to steady his own breathing.

Henry’s laughter is also calming down. He looks at the mess they made, but he is still grinning. “Having a snowball fight on the lawn of the White House wasn’t in my to do list today.”

“What are the odds,” he deadpans, “wasn’t in my plans, either. Life is just one unscheduled snowball fight after another.”

Henry chuckles lightly and Alex gently picks up some of the unmelted snow away from Henry’s curls.

“I’m glad this is our lives,” he says, softly, “and I wouldn’t want to do this with anyone else.”

“Same--,” Alex manages to say before Henry is already grabbing his jacket lapels and bringing their lips together so quickly that their teeth knock together. It makes the laughter bubble up again, and the kissing becomes more difficult, but Alex couldn’t care less, because he is so happy right then and there, despite the fact Henry’s icicle hands are cupping his face again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked it!


	5. Illness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 5 is here! I know that sick!fics are probably not the most popular at this time because of the circumstances, but here is one still.
> 
> tw: slight descriptions of throwing up and puke

Early December 2021

Alex is eating his lunch, while revising, in the kitchen when he hears Henry retching in their bathroom. It’s an awful sound, and Alex shudders a little as he hears it and unsurprisingly loses any appetite he previously had.

Still, he is instantly on his feet. He fills a huge glass with cold water and grabs a few paper towels with him as he heads to the bathroom.

Henry is curled up next to the toilet seat on the floor, but he looks up as he walks in. He looks a lot paler than usually, but his cheeks are rosy, and his forehead is covered in sweat. He seems fragile and weak, and it hurts Alex’s heart to see him like this, but there is very little he, or the modern medicine, can do to a stomach flu.

“Hey,” he says, gently, as he squats and sits down on the floor next to him. He offers the water glass to him and he accepts it with slightly shaky hands. “You okay?”

Henry gulps the water down avariciously. “I have been better,” he breathes out, and takes the paper towels away from his hand and wipes his mouth with them. He puts the glass on the floor next to him and throws the paper towels to trash can.

“You do look terrible,” Alex points out, sympathetically, and pushes a strand of his hair away from his sweaty forehead.

“Ah, always the charmer,” he jokes weakly, but he still manages to give him a lopsided grin, even though his eyelids seem heavy.

“For you, always,” Alex replies cheerily with a wink, looking around their small bathroom. “I didn’t mean to leave you alone.”

Alex had originally, too, planned to study home all day, but he still tweaked his schedule around, when he realised in the morning that Henry was sick enough not to get out of the bed. He started revision and Henry had almost immediately fallen back into restless sleep, and he had slipped out of the bed to eat some lunch.

Henry lets out a noise that distinctively sounds a bit like a chuckle. “When you said that – you were going to take care of me, I didn’t expect you to be glued to my side whole time.” His voice is a little breathless still, but tiny smile is still there.

Alex leans against the sink and grins at him. “I did promise you the full experience of someone fussing over you while you’re sick.”

In the morning, Henry had started to ramble something about asking Shaan to book a hotel room for him so that he wouldn’t bother or infect him while he was sick. Alex had been a little appalled at the thought of it, but it didn’t take him long to realise that is what Henry is used to, at the palace they had to isolate while being sick, some bullshit about the strength of the monarchy, but it also meant that there was no loved one to take care of him.

His dad had apparently used to break the regulations sometimes, but still, being stuck in some plague wing of Buckingham Palace alone while sick sounded atrocious and Alex wouldn’t do that to him again, so he promised that he would stay with him.

Henry’s eyes are closed again, and it looks as if he could actually fall asleep against the toilet. “You don’t have to stay here, love,” he whispers.

“And leave you here alone to be miserable on your own? Not happening,” he tells him, and he lets his thumb slide along his jaw line.

“I appreciate it, but I don’t think I am getting up from here any time soon,” he points out and lazily opens his eyes.

“Nothing wrong with bathroom floor,” he says but he gets up. Henry glances at him, approvingly, as if he finally saw sense.

Alex disappears to the bedroom and rummages through the closets to find the rattiest extra pillows and an old blue blanket. He returns to the bathroom, carrying them in his lap, and Henry shakes his head, slightly in disbelief, as he sees him.

Alex wraps the blanket around his shoulders and gives him two, quite flat, pillows. He keeps one to himself and props it in between him and the sink. “Okay, that’s better,” he declares, happily.

“You’re ridiculous,” Henry manages to murmur, before he abruptly turns and pukes into to the toilet.

The bathroom suddenly reeks, and Alex reaches to flush the toilet, as he rubs his back, in what he hopes is a soothing manner. Henry sips some more water.

“I’m sorry,” he crooks, in between the sips.

“Stop apologizing, you’re sick. You cannot help it,” he reminds him, gently but decisively.

“I don’t think anyone else has camped at the toilet floor for me,” he muses, and some sort of disbelief is still lingering in his eyes.

Alex chuckles. “I don’t think I have done this for anyone else. You should consider yourself special,” he says, and leans slightly to kiss his forehead.

His skin feels warmer than usually, and Henry is frowning as he pulls away. “I’m gross, you don’t have to do that.”

“It would require a bit more than a stomach flu to change my feelings about you,” he says, shrugging a little.

Besides, he only wants to comfort him. Make him feel a little less awful and ease the suffering a bit. To make him know that he is loved and taken care of, and that he does it gladly.

Henry opens his mouth, but then he abruptly closes it again. He looks as if he had suddenly realised something, and confusion dawns on his face. “Wait, aren’t you supposed to have the party today?”

His class is having a full-on holiday themed fancy cocktail party that they have been organizing for weeks. He had been pretty stoked about it and waiting for it, because against his own expectations he has made friends there and he gets quite well along with the rest of them, too, and it is no secret that he adores Christmas time.

“Yeah,” he confirms, “I texted them that I’m not coming.”

He had done almost immediately in the morning when he realised Henry wasn’t well. He hadn’t really thought about it, and he had dwell on it surprisingly little. The disappointment of missing the party stings considerably less than he would have guessed.

“Alex,” he says, little exasperatedly.

“Yeah?” He says, holding his gaze, and pretending that he doesn’t realise what he is implying.

“You--, I could’ve survived on my own,” he says, looking at the toilet seat instead of him.

Even though he says it, they both know that isn’t true. He cannot get up from the floor, and in Alex’s opinion, that is pretty strong indicator that he shouldn’t be left alone. Of course, they could have gotten someone else to take care of him. Alex is convinced that is exactly the sort of stuff that is in Shaan’s job description, but to be honest, he did not want to leave him.

Simple as that.

“Yeah, but I’m where I want to be,” he tells him softly.

Henry squints his eyes. “You would rather spend rest of your day in a stuffy, puke-reeking, bathroom than in a fancy party that you have been looking forward to with your friends?”

“There are attenuating circumstances,” Alex replies, with a fond roll of his eyes. He places his hand on his thigh. “Besides, I’m prioritizing. You know how good I’m at that.”

Henry blinks few times, taking in his words, or rather the implications behind them. Alex guesses the combined effect of slight fever, painkillers and dehydration is making his mind a little fuzzy.

“Thank you," he says, genuinely, "I’d kiss you if I hadn’t just puked my insides out,” he says slowly, “and I’m sorry that you have to miss it.”

He gently nudges his foot with his knee. “First of all, no need for apologizing. Taking care of you isn’t the liability you assume it is. Second of all, you know that quote _‘I’ll take care of you, it’s rotten work, not to me, not if it’s you_ ’?”

He nods.

“That has never been more relatable.”

It is hard to tell, because of the fever, but it almost looks as if Henry was blushing a little.

“Stop quoting love poetry at me when I cannot get up from the bathroom floor without help, I cannot appreciate it enough,” he laughs weakly.

“Duly noted,” he replies with an amused huff.

Henry shifts a little uncomfortably and he looks nauseated. “I’m a little – dizzy. I think I need to lie down,” he mutters, his eyes only half open.

Alex helps him to lie down. He straightens his own feet and puts a pillow on his lap, and gently guides him to put his head on it. He rests his hand on his shoulder. They sort of end up cuddling, even if the position is a bit clumsy and awkward, but he seems comfortable.

“Better?” Alex asks, softly, and pushes some of his hair away from his eyes.

“Yeah,” he breathes out, “I have never realised how deep shade of grey our bathroom walls are,” he mutters as he stares at the small tiles on the wall.

“I think you might be getting a little delirious there,” he says, and strokes his arm. “If we are thinking the distant future of post bathroom floor life, is there anything you need or want?”

Henry is quiet for a moment, apparently considering his answer, and Alex thinks he might have already fallen asleep on him. “Tea,” he eventually replies.

“You’re so weird,” he laughs, “but sure. I have big plans too, including stuff like teeth brushing, clean clothes and changing our bed linens.”

He knows all of that is going to make him feel better once he is well enough to get up from the floor. All of that is starting to sound tempting for him, too.

“That sounds amazing,” he agrees weakly.

They are quiet after that. Alex keeps gently massaging his scalp, especially the top of his head and base of his skull, and it doesn’t take long before he falls asleep on him. The sleep instantly seems more restful than previously and he hopes it is a good sign. His weight on his thighs definitely threatens his leg blood circulation but he couldn’t care less.

He realises that there is no other place he would rather be. Of course, he hopes that he would soon feel better because he feels a little helpless as he cannot do much, but just be there for him.

Just to show up and be there for him, like Henry has done countless times since they became a thing. He has done that for so long and Alex isn’t sure if Henry has deduced that it is what he needs, that it’s one of his love languages, or if he just considers it as an act of love. Nevertheless, he wants to do the same thing for him, and this is the best way he knows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been the most difficult of these prompts to write so far but I hope you liked this!


	6. Snowman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 6 is here!

Mid-December 2022

Snow keeps falling on Alex’s sandwich in big wet bundles, and it is making the bread soggy, so he is attempting to eat it as fast as he can.

Henry is sitting on a bench next to him, and the same is happening to his sandwich, but he is only nibbling it.

“Why did we flee the interview and are having our lunch in a borderline blizzard?” Alex asks, casually, and gestures towards him, with the sandwich wrappers still in his hand.

This is exactly one kind of situation he means when he says that he would follow Henry anywhere, but he would still like to know a reason for all of it.

They are in England, in the middle of the countryside, at one of the countless castles that the royal family has, because they are filming a documentary about the latest few years of the royal family. It is supposed to include a lot of experts commenting on the events and it will be mostly just pictures and montages of the events and public appearances that they have done over the years. But there are short interviews too, and all of them are being filmed in the castle.

Alex guesses they had been almost at the end of their interview, when Henry had gone rigid next to him, and suggested a lunch break and that he needed to get some fresh air.

Everyone had agreed, but knowing Henry, he instantly recognised that something is bothering him. Fleeing away is a classic evasion technique by him.

Alex just cannot comprehend what it is. The documentary is supposed to be pro-monarchy and improve the image of the royal family in the public’s eyes, so they will not ask any hard questions. Alex had pointed out that maybe their public image would be a little better if they owned little less castles, but no one else, expect Henry and Bea, had agreed.

He is also convinced that every question that has been asked any of them has been pre-approved by the palace, if not written by them.

Still, Henry had been antsy for the whole morning.

“It’s—the last question,” Henry says tentatively, squeezing the sandwich wrappers into a tiny ball. He shoves it to the pocket of his coat. “These interviews always go according to the same pattern, and once you suffer through enough of them you can guess what they are going to ask.”

There had already been questions about their lives in New York, his studies and his book, what he likes about UK and how they are going to spend Christmas this year. All of the questions had been simple and non-intrusive, but still, without a fail, the interviewer had checked her notes cards before presenting each of the questions.

“Yeah, I noticed that they aren’t big on improvisation,” Alex huffs, and slides a little closer to Henry on the wooden bench.

He gives him a small, but sad, smile, and he scoops some of the snow away from the bench and starts to form a small, but firm ball out of it. “Exactly. I sort of figured weeks ago what the last question will be most likely, and I know I should have told you earlier, but I didn’t want to distract your revision,” he says, softly. “But I also don’t want that they ambush you back there.”

He had been pretty invested in studying for his finals for the last few weeks, as he had only done last of his exams two days ago, and he is rather convinced that he wouldn’t have had any energy to focus on anything else except surviving and revising. Not necessarily in that order.

“What are they going to ask? A detailed repayment plan for the wedding cake we crushed years ago?” He jokes.

Henry smooths the surface of the small snowball and places it on the ground in front of them. He smiles at his joke, but he immediately scoops more snow in his hands and starts to make another snowball.

“They are going to, almost inevitably, ask when we are getting married.”

Alex blinks a couple of times as he stares at Henry, who is still working on the second snowball, but keeps looking up at him, occasionally.

“So, this is a strategy meeting, about what we should say,” he concludes with a grin, “because you don’t want to give them a genuine answer.”

It’s sweet and considerate that he wants to protect him from any potential surprises that might come to their way during the interview, but the idea of marrying him isn’t exactly going to derail his whole life. It doesn’t even really surprise him that they would ask that.

They are in love, in a committed relationship, and it has been going on for almost three years. It just makes sense that people would start bugging them about it. June has sent him already a couple of gossip magazine articles that claim they had been spotted wearing engagement rings.

He isn’t exactly sure what he would answer if someone asked about it, on camera, out of nowhere. He likes to think that he and Henry are connected enough, in some deep level, that they would have come up with a coordinated lie, but he knows that isn’t the way he wants to do these things.

“I thought it would be easier if we had our ducks in a row beforehand,” he admits, as he places the second snowball on top of another, carefully.

“That’s smart,” he agrees, “so we need a reply that will either satisfy them enough without giving anything away or something that completely throws them off their rhythm.”

Henry nods.

Alex studies him with his gaze as he is still hoovering above the two small snowballs, trying to attach them securely enough. He knows why he wants to be prepared and decide on a joint strategy beforehand, and Alex honestly gets it.

Even though everything, in the end, had turned out well, still getting forcibly outed on a global scale leaves scars behind. It had been horrible for both of them, but even more traumatic for Henry, as he had been even less prepared than he was to come out and announce their relationship.

It is still deeply disturbing idea that their most intimate confessions, thoughts and writings were made public and that anyone could have read them. Everything that made them fall in love, the most personal details, are no longer just _theirs,_ but the world’s. He knows that Henry doesn’t regret any part of their relationship, and neither does he, but if he could change one thing, it would be the way they came out.

He still gets angry, sometimes, when he thinks about it.

He knows, that deep underneath, Henry feels the similar anger, but in his case, it has lead to having his guard up every time they have to talk about _them_ to the press. He is completely onboard of the approach of only telling the world the details about they want to and completely on their own terms.

He watches as the snowflakes keep melting on his hair, making it little flat and damp. “I mean I could always reply that you’re stress building a miniature snowman at even thinking about the prospect of marrying me,” Alex deadpans.

The two snowballs are firmly attached to each other and the ground, and it is starting to resemble a miniature snowman.

“Marrying you is not the part I’m stressed about,” Henry points out softly, as he starts to make a third snowball.

“I know,” he says, gently.

He thinks they have always been on the same page about getting married, in a sense, that it is something that will eventually happen, in the future. That sort of thing happens when promising forevers each other from early on, and Alex knows he isn’t ever going to love anyone else in the way he loves Henry.

So, he has imagined, for a while now, that they get married, one day.

He might have found himself browsing the websites of jewellery stores a couple of times, but there is no concrete plans. Not yet.

“I guess it would be hilarious if one of us said soon and other would say not for a long time,” Henry muses, and a ghost of a smile appears on his lips as he watches the garden that gets covered in a thicker layer of snow.

Alex laughs, genuinely. “I’m almost tempted to do that, even though they would just probably cut it out of the final version.”

The third snowball seems a bit smaller than the rest of them, but he still keeps working on it.

“We could always go with the marriage is an outdated concept,” he suggests.

Henry studies him with his gaze. “That’s a classic,” he says, “do you think it is an outdated concept?” He adds, sounding genuinely curious.

He shrugs. “A bit, maybe, but I like the idea of it. The commitment of it and just the general sentiment of being so in love that one wants everybody to know it, like making a big deal out of it and wanting everyone to know that one has found their soulmate.”

Henry hums as he stands up and crouches down to attach the third snowball, too. It seems to be the head of the miniature stress snowball.

Alex hadn’t really dreamed about getting married, he had more just hoped that he would meet his great love and that he wouldn’t have to spend rest of his life alone, but it turns out that meeting right person makes marriage seem more desirable.

“I like the idea of that,” he says, smiling beatifically at him, “and it will be my honour to marry you some day.”

“Mine too,” Alex replies, easily, and he leans in to kiss him.

The kiss ends up being a bit clumsy because he is squatting and he is still on the bench, but it doesn’t matter. His lips are cold and wet against his, and he tastes distinctively like tomato-goat cheese-sandwich, but none of that matters, because the kiss is so full of love and familiarity. Still, Alex guesses, if he was standing up, his knees might have gone little weak.

“So, our options are wildly different answers and marriage is an outdated concept,” Henry summarises, as he sits next to him again.

“Snowman is valid too,” he remarks, with a grin. “Or we could just say that it’s not happening.”

“Or that we already did it,” Henry suggests, with a lopsided grin.

He laughs. “That would be great. I’m pretty sure we would have to go to exile just to escape our press teams if we did that.”

Henry hums in agreement.

“Or we say that the date is already set, and it will be 31st of February next year,” he suggests, deadpan, but he cannot keep the smirk away from his face.

“They are probably desperate enough for any news, that they would actually eat that up,” he replies, and genuine laugh is bubbling out of his throat.

“Such a tempting possibility,” he muses. He spots a two, slightly different sized, small rocks near the point of his shoe. He picks them up and they feel rough against his palm. He gives them to Henry. He places them on the head of the miniature snowman’s head and now it looks like he has eyes.

“We could just give them an incredibly vague answer,” he says, looking at the small snowman.

It looks a bit pathetic, and although the snowing has eased up a bit, it still keeps getting covered in snowflakes.

“Yes, something that anyone could interpret in the lines of they’re breaking up tomorrow or they will have a lovely spring wedding in Italy next year,” he remarks, chuckling.

“Exactly.”

“Or we could just stare at them until they move on to the next question,” he suggests, “or say that we would have gotten engaged, but David ate the ring.”

Henry is laughing again, too. He sounds genuinely delighted. “Or we could say we get married as soon as we come up with the way to hyphenate our last names.”

“The ultimate issue,” he says, shaking his head, but he cannot fight off the enamoured smile that forms on his lips. “A proper Gordian knot.”

“I know,” he grins, “we will not have five last names.”

“What? I think Claremont-Diaz-Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor has a nice ring to it,” he attempts to say it with a straight face, but he dissolves into chuckles.

“That is an absolute monstrosity.”

Alex nods. “At least it is incredibly valid reason.”

“It would be hard to argue against that,” he points out, but he is looking around them, his eyes are mostly on the ground.

“The true curse of true love, hyphenating,” Alex declares, and nudges Henry’s knee with his own. “So, what’s your favourite?”

“I have a soft spot for the February 31st,” he replies, standing up and picking up a small twig a little further away. It looks damp as it was mostly covered by the snow.

He pokes it to the left side of the snowman.

“I’m fond of the hyphenating excuse,” he remarks, but he keeps looking at the snowman that lacks another arm and a mouth, and it seems more like something straight out of nightmares.

“Both are great.”

“So, we are choosing the vague as hell answer,” he concludes, because there never were another possible and realistic choice, but coming up with the other options is always fun.

“It could work. Deflecting and dodging are what we are good at,” he agrees, and places his hand on his knee.

“It will work. You were brought up in the royal family and I was raised by two politicians. Deflecting and not giving a straight answer is in our bloods,” he replies, in a light tone, as he places his hand on top of his.

“So, do we have our ducks in a row?” He asks, smiling gently at him, and he nods towards the old castle.

“Our ducks and a horrifying one-armed and mouthless snowman are in the best row anyone has ever seen,” he declares amusedly.

“The row is so in sync, like a group of synchronized swimmers,” he adds, deadpan, and points at the small snowman. “It’s not the most beautiful one, but it’s not terrifying,” he tries to argue, little flatly.

Alex stands up and snaps a picture of it with his phone. “Nope, that thing is going to haunt my dreams from now on. And I’m sending this to the group chat, and I can guarantee that everyone will agree that it’s scary.”

Henry wraps his arms loosely around and plants a kiss on his cheek. “The lack of mouth is possibly a bit disturbing.”

Alex turns his head to the side to glare at him. “A _bit_?”

“Maybe more than a bit,” he admits, but he keeps smiling at him, and neither one of them is really in any real hurry to get back to the interview. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said yesterday that it was the hardest chapter/prompt to write, but it was actually this one. I had fun writing this, even if it ended up being a little messy.


	7. Baking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 7! Today's prompt is baking and this was pretty fun to write

December 2021

Alex is so focused on cramming a paragraph about tax law changes in the 1990s that he almost gets startled when he hears the door open behind him.

Soon Henry appears into the small study that Alex has claimed as his space while revising. The room is bit of a mess after a few weeks of revision. There are book piles on the corner of the robust table and few piles have formed on the floor, too. The windowsill has two plotted plants, but otherwise it has been taken over by empty coffee mugs.

He has piled his notes and other papers into untidy piles that take most of the space on the table, but he still has managed to spread two books open on it and his laptop.

“Hey,” Henry says, as his gaze wonders around his organized mess of a studying space.

His hair looks fluffy and he looks only a bit tired. He is wearing ratty sweatpants and a worn-out grey t-shirt that says Georgetown university in blue bulk letters. Alex’s heart does possibly a few somersaults at the sight of Henry wearing his shirt.

He should be used to it by now, he had stolen that t-shirt already months ago. Not that he would mind it, at all.

“Hey,” he replies, dragging his hand across his face. “Everything okay?”

Henry is barefoot, and everything is so quiet that Alex can hear his footsteps against the wooden floor as he walks up to him. “Just came to check if you’re still alive or if one of the book piles has finally tipped over and buried you underneath all of it.”

“Everything’s fine,” he breathes out and reaches to grab his hand. He intertwines their fingers and brings his hand up to place a kiss on his knuckles.

Henry smiles at him and curiously peers at his books and papers. “You have been here for hours.”

Alex blinks at him, confusedly. He rubs his eyes and tries to remember how long he has been working. It is completely dark outside, only the nearby lamp post is illuminating the street. He did turn on the desk lamp at some point, so his studying space isn’t as unlit as it could be.

The soft light of the lamp makes Henry’s hair seem golden.

“What time it is?”

“Almost two,” Henry points out gently, still looking at his papers.

“It’s not,” he tries to argue, little weakly.

“It is,” he says, and for back-up he fishes his phone out of the sweatpants’ pocket and shows it to him. Surely enough he is staring at his lock screen, a picture of Alex holding David in his lap and neither one of them are looking at the camera, but each other, and the clock spread over his face reads 1.56 am.

He had completely lost the track of time. According to his estimations, it was only 10 pm, at worst. He doesn’t know how he had been so completely absorbed in his studying.

“Oh,” he says, little involuntarily, “I did eat dinner,” he says, for some reason, as if doing a one mundane task for his well-being and general health would excuse being in a some sort of hyper focus zone for hours.

“I know, but that was about seven hours ago give or take,” he points out, and moves his gaze to him. There is no edge of accusation or frustration in his eyes or voice, only gentleness and softness is there.

Alex opens his mouth to argue that doesn’t seem right, but he abruptly closes it because as he does quick calculations in his head, he concludes that Henry must be right. “Sorry,” he says, sheepishly.

“You don’t have to apologize,” he says, simply but gently, “I made you some food.”

He lets go of his hand and disappears out of the door for a minute, but he returns with a plate full of food and glass of water. He places it on the table. He hops to sit on the edge of the table himself, and expectantly glances at Alex.

He picks up a sandwich, a cucumber-cheese one apparently, and bites into it. He didn’t even realise how hungry he is until he saw and smelled food. Now, his stomach growls. 

“Thank you,” he says as genuinely as he can, as he wipes breadcrumbs away from his mouth. He is already eating a second sandwich.

“You’re welcome,” he says, and points to the four small pies that are placed on the other end of the plate. “I also baked these mince pies.”

They smell delicious, and the crust on them looks soft, but crumbly. Still, Alex glances suspiciously at Henry, because they seem so inherently British.

Henry laughs one of his most care-free and genuine laughs. “Don’t look so suspicious.”

“I’m still recovering from the sheer disgust of boiled tomatoes and corn in sandwiches,” he deadpans, but he still picks up one of the pies. It still feels warm against his palm.

His culinary expedition to British kitchen has not gone so smoothly so far, which has been an endless source of entertainment for Henry and suffering for him.

Henry rolls his eyes fondly. “Oh, it is the traditional pasty of England, a whole boiled tomato baked into a pie dough,” he says, but his eyes are gleaming with amusement.

Alex just stares at him.

“I’m joking. It’s a pastry, but it’s sweet. No vegetables involved,” he says, and places his hand on his heart, “I promise. Only fruit.”

It sounds like it is a regular pie, but just in miniature size.

“The sad truth is that I would have eaten the boiled tomato pie too,” Alex remarks as takes a huge bite of the pie.

He has a soft spot for anything that Henry cooks or bakes for him. He will eat almost anything just because of the idea that he has made something for him, no matter how big or small, always makes a wave of warmth spread in his chest.

It’s just the idea that everything he bakes and cooks is always done with love and him in mind.

“Oh, this is good,” he exclaims as he finishes eating the pie. The filling is definitely sweet, but it has some sort spice in it, and it tastes distinctively of apricot.

Henry almost blushes and flashes him a sheepish smile. “I’m glad,” he says, as he picks up one of the pies, too, and takes a small bite out of it.

“Definitely the star baker of the week,” he declares, happily, and takes another pie.

Henry smiles at him, and the tiny smile illuminates his whole face. “We tend to eat them during Christmas. Bea likes them a lot.”

“She has good taste.”

Alex finishes eating the other one and wipes his fingers to the napkin that Henry brought with the plate.

“I like them, too,” he murmurs.

“I already know you have a great taste,” he replies, without missing a beat, and gestures towards himself, with a brilliant grin.

“Exactly,” he snorts, but the genuine smile returns to his face immediately.

Egg timer starts to ring in the kitchen, although the noise is little muffled. Henry is instantly on his feet. “I have more stuff in the oven,” he explains and quickly disappears.

Alex is left there alone, little dumbfounded, and unsure if he should follow Henry to the kitchen or stay there. Or possibly even head to the bed, but he hears him opening the hatch of the oven and the smell of whatever he has baked next fills the air.

The smell instantly feels familiar, it smells of sweet spices, home and Christmas, and Alex cannot just stay put. He leans to the kitchen door frame as he watches Henry places something that looks suspiciously lot like a Mexican chocolate pie on the kitchen island.

“I thought I hallucinated that smell,” he admits, as he walks up to Henry, who is still wearing the white-and-green oven mittens.

“Er, no. Surprise?”

He sounds a little unsure of himself, and Alex wraps his arms around his waist and pulls him closer. He kisses his cheek. “I love you so much.”

Henry smiles a pleased smile, as he looks down to the pie. “You mentioned last week that you craved for it, and we didn’t get around eating it, and you seemed a little bummed out, so I thought this would be nice.”

“It’s my favourite.”

Out of all the Christmas desserts, chocolate pie with whipped cream and cinnamon drizzle has been his favourite as long as he can remember. It has always been on their Christmas table, either his abuelita or his dad had baked one.

Henry takes off the oven mittens and places his hand on his arm, that is still tightly wrapped around him. “Just don’t hope too much, I do not know how it turned out. I only had a recipe that I found from google to rely on.”

“It smells amazing at least and it looks right.”

“Yeah, I think it turned out bit dry--,” Henry starts, but Alex cuts him off, immediately.

“H, stop, I don’t care if it’s dry-looking, it’s perfect, okay?”

He hums as a response, but he doesn’t sound entirely convinced.

“I cannot believe you actually baked this,” he still says, disbelief echoing in his voice. His remark about the pie had been offhandedly made, he didn’t expect anything out of it, and he didn’t even know if Henry had heard it, but obviously he had been listening.

The Mexican chocolate pie takes some effort, especially if one does the crust from scratch, and judging by the height of the dish pile in the sink, Henry has done exactly that.

Knowing that he has done all of that just to surprise him and make him happy does unfair things to his heart. He rests his chin on his shoulder.

“I wanted to surprise you, I know you’re working hard on the revision and I wanted to do something nice. I wanted to do this a bit earlier already, but I didn’t have the time,” he explains, in a hushed voice.

“Thank you,” he murmurs against his neck. He gently holds the tip of his chin and turns his head to the side slightly so that he can properly kiss him. He pours all of his love for him and gratitude in it, and it’s soft and sweet, and there is no rush to anywhere.

“Moment of truth,” Henry says, as he takes the whipped cream out of the fridge and slides the cinnamon drizzle bowl along the table. He rummages the drawers and hands him a fork.

He cuts a small piece out of it and manoeuvres it to the plate. Surprisingly, it doesn’t fall to its side or turn around. He puts both cream and cinnamon on it and takes a big forkful of it.

The texture might be a little off, it is a bit dry, just as he guessed, but none of that matters because the taste is almost the same. There is an explosion of flavour in his mouth, the creaminess, distinct taste of chipotle pepper and rich sweetness of the chocolate all blend into one. Cinnamon just intensifies the combination of flavours.

Maybe he is exhausted and maybe he is feeling little nostalgic, and maybe he is overcome with emotions and his love for Henry, but he could swear that the pie tastes like happiness, childhood Christmas, home and love. He feels comforted as he eats it and so, he starts to cry a little.

It is not sobbing, but tears start to fall along his cheeks, and he cannot stop it. He wipes few of them to the sleeve of his sweatshirt. Then he does the mistake of looking at Henry, who looks absolutely horrified as he sees his tears.

The shock and terror on his face only make him laugh, and there he is, eating the pie and making a bunch of undignified sounds as he is laughing, crying and trying his best not to choke simultaneously.

“Alex, are you alright?” Henry asks, worriedly and winces a little. “Is it that bad? Are those _tears_? Are you laughing?”

Poor Henry sounds so distressed that it only makes him laugh harder, but he manages to swallow. “It’s amazing. These are happy tears, or happy exhausted tears, I promise,” he says with a breathless chuckle and takes another forkful of the chocolate pie and feeds it to him.

“Okay, that is pretty good,” Henry admits, his mouth still full of pie. “Does it taste any similar to the original?” He asks, curiosity obviously present in his voice, as he wipes a few more tears away from Alex’s cheeks.

“Yeah, it’s pretty similar,” he laughs, “I mean, I’m crying ‘cause it’s so good, so very valid first attempt.”

Henry picks up his hand that isn’t holding the fork and squeezes it slightly. He pushes some of his curls away from his forehead. “I mean I didn’t aim for tears, but I’m glad they are out of happiness, love.”

“I’m definitely signing you up for the celebrity Great British Bake off,” he tells him, amusedly, in between the eating some more pie.

Henry laughs again, just as genuinely, and he seems a little pleased with himself. “I’m happy you like it.”

“Mhhm,” he replies, his mouth full of pie as he keeps eating it, “I think our Christmas dinners might turn into English-American-Mexican fusion kitchen,” he says, happily.

“Hah, what a combination,” he says, amusedly, and searches for another fork from the drawers.

“Seems to work well enough,” Alex says, with a sly smile, and gives another forkful to Henry.

“I agree,” he replies, and his eyes are shining, enamoured.

Alex guesses that if someone were to ask him the definition of true love, he would answer that it is the feeling that one gets when one has been working too late and someone surprises them by baking their beloved dessert and feeding it slowly, savouring it, to each other in their own kitchen while laughing, even if it is half past two in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have never had either one of those pies, so I'm sorry if my descriptions are little off, I only had google to help me.


	8. Fuzzy Socks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just pure fluff

December 2021

Alex is a big fan of Christmas, and the holiday season in general. He just adores the idea that there are celebrations of joy and light during the darkest season of the year, and the cheerfulness and love of the atmosphere.

His fondness over the holiday season might also have something do with the fact that holidays are mostly a constant. Every year they roll around and no matter how crazy their lives have become, with his mom’s presidency and all, holidays have always felt the same. He gets to spend time with his loved ones and the traditions just bring structure and a focal point to his life, and it just somehow grounds him.

Very early on into their first holiday season together as a couple, he and Henry realised that their cherished Christmas traditions were different from each other, and that was fine, but Alex was keen to create new traditions because Henry is now part of his family, too, and he wanted something that was only _theirs_.

Hence, he came up with the idea of The Great Battle of Fuzzy Socks last year. The rules were simple enough, they both had a year to find the most awful and ugliest pair of fuzzy socks as possible, and then they would compare their findings.

Obviously, they cannot objectively decide themselves which ones are more horrible, which is why they enlisted their friends and siblings as judges.

That is exactly how they end up sitting at their living room floor on one Saturday morning. They are both leaning against their couch and Alex holds up his phone at an armlength. David is curled up, asleep, in between them.

“First things first,” Alex says, and puts the phone closer to the sleeping dog. “Say hi to David.”

Henry laughs silently as Alex tries to get his phone in a good angle so that everyone can see him properly, and their chorus of _awws_ and cooing sounds almost synchronised. “Hey baby,” Bea says in incredibly soft voice and David opens his eyes for a moment and peers around a little confusedly, wagging his tail, before he settles back in and falls asleep again.

“Wait, what’s the prize?” Pez asks on the phone.

Obviously, orchestrating them all in one city, let alone on one continent, had been difficult, so they had ended up choosing to do a group facetime instead.

“Eternal glory,” Alex declares.

“And the loser has the toilet cleaning duties for a month,” Henry adds, leaning in closer to Alex.

“Man, you guys are so domesticated,” Pez says, shaking his head, but he sounds mostly just amused and fond.

“I think the loser should also have to post a picture of their socks to Instagram,” June pipes up.

“That’s fair,” Henry agrees, and he just nods next to him.

“Okay, moment of truth,” Alex says, laughing, and switches away from the front camera, so that everyone can see their legs instead of their faces. Henry stands up and Alex brings the phone closer to his feet. He kicks off the comfy looking slippers, revealing his choice of socks.

Alex immediately starts laughing when he sees them.

His fuzzy socks are pale purple. Similar kind of decrepit shade that a hospital gown might have. The worst part, however, is the patterns. The socks have frog faces on them, only now that they are on Henry’s feet, the faces are stretched laterally and making their faces deformed. Some of the small frogs are wearing ridiculously long top hats and rest of them have baseball caps on their heads.

“Alex, stop laughing, we cannot see anything because you’re shaking so much,” June says, and Alex mutters sorry as he switches back to the front camera and props his phone against the leg of their coffee table.

“It’s frogs with hats,” Henry says, happily, and wickless his toes a little.

Everybody’s laughter is mixing together on the phone.

“They are very – charming,” Bea says, but she dissolves into giggles as she speaks.

“Those things are a crime against humanity,” Pez declares, but the grin on his face is bright and wide.

“Those are sort of horrible,” June says, almost thoughtfully, and tries to get a closer look by squinting her eyes.

“They are so ugly that they are almost cute,” Nora says, but she is chuckling, too.

Alex still hasn’t been able to stop laughing, he is squatting down, and his laughter woke up David, who is now nested in between his knees and wags his tail happily as he scratches his back. “They’re awful, but this is exactly the kind of thing I meant,” he says, looking up at Henry, with glee in his eyes, “where did you find them?”

“From the motherland,” Henry replies, deadpan, but grin creeps onto his lips, too. “They are incredibly comfortable.”

Alex stands up. “They’re a sight to behold, and I should have guessed that sort of monstrosity comes from there,” he jokes, but leans in to kiss Henry.

The kiss is a mess because they both are just grinning and chuckling, but it’s still warm and full of love and adoration, and they sort of get into it and forget what they were doing.

A loud, exasperated sigh can be heard from the other end of the line. “We cannot see you, but we can hear you kissing, it’s gross, so stop it,” Nora laughs.

“I do not need to know how my little brother sounds when he is kissing,” Bea adds, amusedly, but still as if she was suffering greatly.

“Exactly,” June half-yells and starts to laugh, too. “Way too much information.”

“It was less gross to listen to you two pine after each other,” Pez says, with an exasperated sigh, but the amusement is still clearly in his voice.

Henry pulls away slightly, with a sheepish smile and lets his hands slide away from his waist. “Sorry,” he tells the rest of them.

“I’m not sorry,” Alex tells them, smugly, and grins at Henry, “but we can move on to my socks, aka the winner ones, because you all decided to ruin the mood.”

Alex kicks off his dark blue slippers. His socks are dark red, almost maroon, and his ones have patterns too. It’s Henry’s turn to squat, and he starts to laugh so hard, he loses his balance and falls on his back. David is immediately there to lick his face.

The patterns on his socks are poorly drawn turkeys in wearing sweaters and Christmas hats. Their eyes are hollow and in between the turkeys, which are in rows, there are seasonal lights, and the socks have real, genuine, led lights that are twinkling in red, blue and green.

Henry is almost wheezing on the floor next to him, and Alex grins at him beatifically. He feels like a winner just because of his reaction.

“Alex, mate, you are blinding me with those atrocities,” Pez laughs.

“I have only one question it is _why_ ,” June says, “why does it need to have real lights? Who needs leds on their socks?” Her voice is a mixture of desperation and pure amusement, but she sounds exasperated.

“I think those are pretty entertaining,” Bea remarks, and she sounds genuinely delighted.

“Those eyes are so haunting,” Nora, deadpans, dramatically. “But after seeing those, it is really easy to believe that they are prehistoric and related to dinosaurs.”

David’s attention has been also captured by the blinking lights and he sniffs the socks carefully.

Henry has managed to calm down his bubbling laughter. He hugs his own knees as he sits on the floor. Alex sits next to him, but kisses the top of his head, on the way down.

“I’m almost afraid to ask where you got those?” Henry asks, nevertheless, and his eyes are gleaming.

“Online,” he says, happily, “some artist was complaining how close thanksgiving and Christmas are, and how they should be a big joint holiday.”

Henry shakes his head. He points at one of the turkeys. “That one looks a bit like Cornbread.”

Alex laughs genuinely, throwing his head back a little. “I know, that’s party why I picked these.”

“Are you guys seriously reminiscing over turkeys?” Nora demands.

“Yes.”

“The Great Turkey Calamity was a pivotal point for this relationship,” Henry points out, softly.

“So, which ones are the ugliest?” Alex asks, focusing all his attention back to the phone call.

“They are both awful, but I cannot get over the frogs in top hats, man, that’s just so _terrible_ ,” Pez concludes, shaking his head, and spontaneous laughter escapes his throat.

Henry looks pleased and gives him a virtual high five.

“I think the turkey ones are more awful,” Bea says, thoughtfully, “just because of the colour. It’s so _red._ ”

Alex shakes his fist a little, victoriously.

“It’s hard to choose,” Nora says, “I mean they are pretty similar. Both include some sort of creature wearing a hat. I think you have spent too much time together, your minds are becoming too intertwined,” she continues, but she is smiling, “but objectively, the frog ones are almost cute. The turkeys are just garnish, so turkeys.”

Alex woops and Henry rolls his eyes fondly.

“I agree with Nora, it goes without saying that you’re both idiots,” she says, but her voice is full of warmth and fondness. “Henry, I think Alex’s idiocy is rubbing off on you, but yeah, the lights make the socks more horrendous.”

“Vindication,” Alex declares, happily, with a brilliant grin.

“These are horrific,” Henry says, as he points at his own socks, “but those are on whole another level,” he continues, but his face breaks into a smile, “I can accept my defeat.”

“You were a pretty great opponent,” Alex says, mirroring his brilliant grin. It warms his heart a lot that Henry accepted his silly idea and decided to take it seriously enough.

“This was fun,” he says, “again next year?”

Alex’s heart soars. “It’s on.”

“This will be an annual tradition?” Pez asks, excitedly.

“We need higher stakes next year,” June decides, and rest of them seem to agree, and already start to plan what will be next year’s prize.

They talk a little longer on the phone, catching up with everyone, and sharing fun anecdotes and complaints about their lives, until Nora has to hurry to some job thing and Pez has some event to attend to.

Soon, it’s just the two of them, and snoring David, on their living room carpet. They sit so close to each other that their arms are pressed against each other.

“I think we need more own traditions,” Henry says, softly, glancing at him.

“Oh, definitely,” he agrees, and he knows, that coming up with more fun traditions probably won’t be that difficult task.

***

Henry stays good on his word, and posts a picture of his horrible frog socks to Instagram. In the picture, one can see a bit of his trousers covered legs and the socks that are upside down because he took the picture himself. He captions it with _stylish #TheThingsIDoForLove_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked it!


	9. Hike

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 9 is already here and I almost forgot to post this, but here it is!

Late November 2023

It’s late, probably little bit past midnight, when Henry crawls into their bed next to him. Alex has been already lying there, trying to relax and lull his mind into sleeping by reading a book, but his mind is still racing and he cannot seem to focus on reading, because he keeps reading the same paragraph over and over again, without truly comprehending it.

He tosses the book to his nightstand with a thump, and he turns on his right side and looks at Henry instead. He has always been better at calming his mind than anything or anyone else.

“Everything okay?” He murmurs, half-against the pillow, because Henry keeps scrolling something on his phone, and he seems to be deep in his thoughts. He is wearing a grey t-shirt that's slightly too big for him. 

“The cabin company keeps sending emails, asking if we want to purchase planned activities,” Henry says, almost offhandedly, tearing his eyes away from his phone, to smile at Alex, but he quickly returns his attention to the email.

They had managed to organize their schedules so that they both could take a long weekend off in the middle of the December and they had rented a tiny cabin, almost in the middle of nowhere, in east coast Canada, just for the two of them.

It will be a first proper vacation they will have together in ages, without any obligations or commitments, and Alex had planned to spend most of it inside and preferably in bed.

“What are they offering?”

“Skiing and skating lessons, sleigh rides, snow-shoeing, but most of it seems to be hiking,” he summarizes and turns his phone around to show the list to him.

“Going to strange woods with a small group of people sounds like a start of horror movie,” Alex jokes, lazily, as he eyes the list, “or the start of an episode of _criminal minds_.”

Henry laughs, genuinely, at that, but he still keeps staring at the email, intensively, and Alex realises something as he studies him with his gaze.

He has known Henry for years now, and he likes to think that he knows how to read him like an open book, even if he is more reserved person than he is. The learning curve of observing him has taught him a lot, and since they live together, Alex likes to think that they are in sync.

Sometimes, he can predict his next movements or words, but most of all, he just genuinely wants to know all of him, from head to toe, and even after all these years, there is still some uncharted territory, and Alex sort of hopes he will never stop discovering new sides and things about him, because every time he does so, he falls a little bit more in love.

Yet the most useful skill he has acquired during his expedition of Henry, is tuning into same frequency as him with his emotions. To know the nuances and implications of his facial expressions, body movements and word choices.

Alex knows that they have always shared to tendency to communicate their feelings verbally, or generally through words, and that their communication is mostly great and that they can talk about anything to each other, but it is still helpful to have a bunch of other clues, besides Henry’s words, to help him understand him.

Throughout his series of small and big discoveries, he has learned that Henry is almost categorically bad at asking for things for himself. Alex isn’t sure where it all stems from, but he is quite sure it is a taught thing. Possibly something related to the Palace, duty and obligations. Repressing his own desires and wants sounds exactly the sort of mentality they have been promoting back there, as far as he can tell.

Alex has been trying to gently nudge him towards the mentality of that he can ask for things he wants, and he has made progress, at least with him.

But this time, as he notices that he bites the inside of his lower lip and that his gaze is focused on certain part of the email and that he is slightly tilting his head to the side and squinting at his phone. He knows that he is perfectly capable of asking it, but that doesn’t mean he cannot take the burden of asking away from him, and just _offer_ it himself.

“But sure, we can go hiking,” he says, softly.

“Really?” Henry glances at him, his voice full of disbelief, but his eyes seem delighted, and Alex feels a little more than pleased with himself for figuring it out.

“Yeah, it could be fun,” he replies, and he tries to shrug as well as he can against the mattress and the pillow.

“I have never hiked,” Henry points out, and keeps tapping his phone with his thumb.

“I hear it’s very similar to walking,” Alex says, deadpan, but he cannot help but grin, brightly, “just slightly more challenging terrain.”

Henry rolls his eyes, but a smile forms on his lips, too. It seems genuine and warm. “What about the length?”

“Hmm, any is fine,” Alex says, closing his eyes, but he quietly hopes that he won’t choose anything too long, he would still like to spend most of the time inside, but then again, he would do pretty much anything to make him happy.

“Maybe the five miles? It’s the shortest they offer,” he says, thoughtfully.

“Yeah, that sounds great,” he replies, opening his eyes again.

Henry taps the screen of his phone some more, most likely booking the hiking trip, until he puts his phone away to the nightstand, and lies down next to him. It doesn’t take long until he is kissing him, eagerly.

Henry turns him, gently, on his back and slides on top of him, astride, but he doesn’t lean into him with his full weight, as if he was afraid that he would crush him. He keeps most of his weight on his own knees, and carefully and gently takes off Alex’s reading glasses and places them on top of his book.

Alex looks at him for the whole time, studying the way their bedroom lights cast a goldish glow on his cheek and hair. He studies the sharp ankles of his jawline and shoulders with his gaze.

Henry takes both of his hands into his own, he and intertwines their fingers. He gently pushes his hands along the bed sheet so that both of Alex’s hands are above his head and he pines them there.

“Is this okay?” His voice is soft, but there is an edge of hoarseness.

He knows what he likes and dislikes, but he is always asking if he is comfortable with whatever they are doing, and it always, without a fail, makes a wave of warmth spread in his chest.

He nods, enthusiastically.

“Thank you,” he whispers, as his gaze searches something from his eyes.

“For what?” Alex breathes out, and bites down a smile.

“I know you agreed only to indulge me,” he replies, sounding amused.

He can feel his breath on his face, and his heart flutters in his chest.

It is possible that tuning into each other’s frequencies and knowing each other completely goes both ways. He feels strangely known and seen, but in a good way.

“Maybe,” he admits in a whisper.

Henry hums, happily, and he kisses the curve of his collarbone. “We can do something that you want to do, too,” he says, against his skin.

“Sure, but I don’t exactly consider going to a hike with you as a torture, so it’s all fine,” Alex says with a chuckle, as he stares the white ceiling, but he closes his eyes, and just enjoys the sensation of his lips against his kin.

Henry keeps humming, as he finally presses his body against his as he keeps kissing his neck. Alex shivers slightly and it feels as if his skin could combust.

“I mean I get to spend time with you, and that makes any place or activity instantly better,” he says, truthfully, but he ends up saying it mostly against Henry’s hair.

He lifts his head slightly, and he is grinning at him. “I know the feeling.”

This time, it is Alex who initiates the kiss. It’s eager and hungry kiss, and it is still full of adoration, but it is filled with pure desire, too. He didn’t believe in the sparks are flying descriptions until he met Henry, but now, it actually feels that there is not just sparks, but something that is igniting and burning.

As he is pressed against him, he can feel that he is getting excited too, and he knows where this whole thing is eventually leading to.

But that doesn’t mean he cannot romance the shit out of the moment they are currently having. Besides, that’s the whole point of it. Henry knows what he likes, but once again, it goes both ways, because he knows his soft spots, too. “And I want to make you happy, and if it means wading through knee deep snow in the middle of the forest, then that’s what I’ll do and I’ll do it damn gladly.”

“That’s poetic,” he tells him, with a shit-eating grin, but it doesn’t hide his blush, and the grin turns into a beatific smile quite quickly. “And you do make me happy, so incredibly happy, and even words fail me even though that’s supposed to be my strength, which is rather unfair.”

Alex tilts his head to the side and holds his gaze, almost daring him. “Mhhm, maybe you don’t need words to show me how happy I make you,” he suggests, but his breath hitches only a little in his throat.

Henry’s smile is disarming, and he can feel how he starts to unravel under him and his gaze.

“You’re right, love, I don’t,” he whispers, against his ear, and he returns to kiss the small part of his neck where it meets his collarbone.

Alex realises his mind has stopped racing because all of his thoughts and senses are just consumed by Henry, and now, his whole body feels electrified, but he finds himself not minding it, at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I write for the prompt of hiking a fic where they don't even leave the bed? Yes.


	10. Snowflake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 10!

Early December 2021

Alex wakes up slowly, blinking the drowsiness away from his eyes, in the sun lit bedroom. The sunlight floods in from the tall and narrow window, and the snow outside reflects it, making it particularly bright.

Henry’s side of the bed is empty and unmade, the duvet is a big bundle in the end of the bed, but as Alex fumbles it with his hand, it seems cold. Henry has been probably awake for hours at this point, and as Alex lays there, just breathing and gathering energy to actually get up, he cannot hear any noises from rest of the apartment.

He guesses Henry has already left to run his errands and whatever meetings he has to attend to. For him, it’s a rare and slow day, only few hours of lectures in the evening, and he definitely needed more than a few hours of sleep, but he still feels a slight sting of disappointment at waking up alone.

It’s not Henry’s fault in any way, but he has been just exhausted lately. He has done a lot of revision and assignments and any sort of free time has been a scarcity but spending time with Henry has become even rarer.

It makes his heart ache, even though, he guesses, that he should be just grateful that they are at least living in the same apartment, instead of different countries and cities.

He sits up in the bed and rubs his face, but then, he notices something in the corner of his eye, on Henry’s pillow.

It’s an ivory white envelope with his name written on it. It’s definitely Henry’s elegant handwriting, and Alex opens it carefully, so he won’t rip whatever is inside of it.

He finds a few, folded, pages of paper.

_Alex, my love_

_It is middle of the night, and unsurprisingly, I cannot sleep. I’m in our bed, still, I know I could get up and do something other than just lay here in the dark, but I cannot bring myself to leave you._

_Also, unsurprisingly, it is very hard not to think about you while I’m awake, generally and currently. You fill up the entire room with your small movements and noises, even though you are fast asleep. It’s snowing outside, I can see how the snowflakes glimmer as they fall and when the lamp post’s light hits on them, it is beautiful, but I would still rather look at you._

_Which brings me to this letter. It’s a love letter, if you haven’t have guessed it already. I think I haven’t written you a love letter in ages, not properly at least. Sometimes it feels that everything I write to you is a love letter in its own right. Every text and post-it note. But still, I wanted to do this the old-fashioned way._

_You snore._

_That probably is not the most romantic confession to make, but you do and lucky for you, I find it endearing. It’s not a loud noise and I think it is only caused by the way you sleep. You’re on your stomach and you hug your pillow, properly clutching it and you press it against your own throat, as if you tried to suffocate yourself._

_It looks uncomfortable, but you look peaceful. More relaxed than you have in days. I know you’re working hard and it’s your own ambition that drives you, but it still pains me to see you so exhausted, but I’m glad you get to sleep, and I wish I could ease your stress at least a bit. But, I’ll be there to drag you to bed at ungodly hours when you lose the track of time and occasionally make you eat and drink something that doesn’t include caffeine._

_Still, this is you, you dive headfirst into everything you do, and you give every part of yourself to any project that you commit yourself to and it’s amazing. I’m not saying this to complain what an inconvenience it is that you get so absorbed in school or any political or charity things you are working on, because it is not. I know with whom I fell in love with and I do love every part of you._

_Besides, witnessing you merely being you, and trying your hardest, is already incredible, but being in the receiving end of your love is even more incredible, and you love the same way you do anything in this life, fiercely, completely and with everything you got._

_I miss you._

_It is a bit ridiculous because you are right there, just twenty inches away from me, but I still do. And don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for each and every moment we have together, even if it’s just a rushed breakfast or brushing our teeth in the evening at the same time. Even this, being in the same bed simultaneously, feels like a privilege._

_You move in your sleep a lot and your hair is a mess. Even now, half of it hangs on your face and you keep scrunching your nose when the strands of hair fall on your nose or eyes. I have no idea how you manage to sleep like that._

_I know this is starting to sound creepy, I don’t spend all of my nights just watching you sleep, and even now I’m staring more at this letter than you, but we spent so many nights with an entire ocean between us, so I’m still going to keep glancing at you, just because I can._

_And who wouldn’t want to look at you? You’re gorgeous and so beautiful, but still, getting to see you like this, is my favourite version. You asleep, when you have dried drool on your chin. You with toothpaste and coffee stains on your face and pyjamas. Your face and palms covered in dark blue pen ink when you have been studying too long. You bed hair in the morning. All of that just because no one else gets to see you like that it means the world to me that you let me see you like that._

_It is snowing even harder and you know, how sometimes, at night, everything feels surreal? It’s starting to feel like that, and my mind is wandering. Looking at the snowflakes falling (yes, I stopped staring at you) makes me wonder what are the chances that a certain snowflake falls on a certain place. I feel like chances of that are lot lower than us meeting and falling in love, which also seemed pretty unlikely at one time._

_But I’m glad we met and fell in love, it still amazes me sometimes, how did you end up deciding that I am worthy of your love, but I’m glad that I am, or at least try to be._

Alex stops reading the letter, and just stares a smudge on the bottom of the page. He turns the letter around, to find more text and he laughs as he continues to read.

_Sorry about the smudge. It is entirely your fault. You kicked me in the shin. Like I said, you move a lot while sleeping and this is hardly the first time you have kicked me, but it’s all fine, you are forgiven._

_I guess it is a bit similar, snowflakes falling and falling in love, because a lot of it is up to chance. But the difference is that snowflakes, at some point, stop falling when they meet the ground. I am in love with you, but I don’t think I have stopped falling, yet._

_For the old time’s sake, I will finish this letter with other people’s words._

_“If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more” -Jane Austen_

_Imagine how long this rambling letter would have been then_

_Yours, always, Henry_

Alex reads the letter a couple of times before he reaches to his nightstand to pick up his phone. The line rings only a couple of times before he picks up. He traces the lines with his thumb, and keeps reading his favourite bits, the ones that make his heart beat a little faster.

“You found the letter then?” Henry asks, amusedly, as a form of greeting.

“I did, thank you,” Alex replies, with a smile on his face, as he lies down in the bed.

“Writing love letters for you isn’t exactly the hardest task,” he says, softly.

“Hmm, I know and you’re getting a letter back. We do not practice one-sided love letter correspondence in this household.”

Henry laughs. “Okay.”

Alex stares at the clock on their bedroom wall and does quick calculations in his head. “I should be home at a reasonable time, I could take a night-off,” he suggests.

He hears rustling in the other end of the phone. “Only if you want to and are able to,” he says, softly, “my intention wasn’t to make you feel guilty.”

“You didn’t,” he reassures. He has been missing him too and the letter just made the longing a little bit stronger, but that isn’t his fault. “I just really wanna see you.”

“Okay, I’ll be at home,” Henry says, and Alex can hear from his voice that he is smiling, widely.

His heart is fluttering in his chest and it feels as if his body couldn’t contain all of the love that he is currently harbouring.

“Great, I cannot wait.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, I'm only filling the prompt very vaguely and although this was fun to write, it was also difficult.


	11. Cabin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 11! Still, almost 2/3 of the prompts still to go!

Mid December 2023

As soon as Alex sees the bed, he collapses into it. Henry follows him soon after, collapsing next to him. The bed is huge and incredibly soft, and Alex has no foreseeable plans to get up from there.

They had finally reached the cabin they had rented in east coast Canada for a prolonged weekend, but the way to there had been atrocious. Their plane had been delayed by a couple of hours due to a snowstorm and then a car malfunction put their journey to a halt.

At least, the cabin seems cosy and warm. It’s a bit bigger than the pictures online let to believe, but it has robust looking dark wooden walls and very rustic style decoration. It’s nice and warm, and ridiculously luxurious, Alex didn’t really look around before heading straight to the bed.

There is a tiny stairwell that leads to a huge bedroom in the second floor, which is currently dim, because neither one of them bothered to turn on the lights and only source of light are the lamps downstairs.

There is a wide skylight window right above the bed, and the darkness had fallen already hours ago. It’s a clear night and the sky looks almost black above them, and small stars are glimmering here and there. For a moment, they just lay there, quietly, looking at the stars. Alex can hear Henry’s soft breathing next to him and it is so incredibly soothing that he almost falls asleep.

“I can’t believe it’s just the two of us,” Alex says, breaking the silence.

The last couple of weeks had been hectic and they had spent more days apart than in the same apartment. He missed Henry, terribly, and he was thrilled about their weekend spent together, but now the exhaustion weighs heavy in every part of his body. He inches little closer to him.

“Just us and the six armed guards outside and in the next cabin,” Henry replies, amusedly, “but I do get what you mean.”

“Just the eight of us,” Alex corrects himself, with fake wistfulness in his voice, but despite his exhaustion he cannot help but grin.

“It’s beautiful,” he breathes out, his eyes are focused on the bright stars above them. Henry brushes his knuckles with his lean fingers.

It truly is beautiful. Alex cannot remember when he would have seen the stars properly. Probably in Texas, or out of an airplane window. Not that he would not usually be awake at the time when the stars come out, but New York has so much light pollution that he can never really even distinguish the stars from rest of the sky, when he has a chance to look up.

He turns his head slightly to look at Henry. He seems mesmerized by the night sky, his eyes gleaming a little. Even though the room is dim, Alex can still see his face clearly. The curve of his cheekbone and the way a strand of his hair falls rests against his forehead. “Yeah,” Alex replies, with a light tone, “and the stars, too.”

Henry seems to blush a little and nudges his arm with his own. A warm smile spreads on his lips and it lingers there. “Do you ever feel small when looking at the stars?”

“Yeah,” he replies, taking his hand into his own. He holds it gently and strokes the back of his hand with his thumb. “It all seems so vast that it makes almost everything else seem insignificant.”

Yet, as he holds his hands, his eyes looking up at the darkness and lights, what he has with him, and what he feels for him, doesn’t feel insignificant compared to the rest of the universe. It feels at least as important, huge and powerful.

“But I find it comforting, too,” he starts, “that so many people and generations have looked up to the same stars, and that so many people after us will look at them, too.”

The thought of it gives him a sense of continuity and that maybe they all are a part of something bigger than just their own lives.

The silence falls between them again, but it is comforting and soothing one.

Still, Alex decides to break it again. He glances at Henry, and grins one of his brightest smiles at him. “Guess what book I brought with me?”

He lets go of Henry’s hand and reaches to his bag, that lies abandoned next to the massive bed, and doesn’t even give him a chance to guess, before he tosses the book at him. He sits up as he looks at it.

Henry keeps looking at the cover of the book, tracing the title of it with his finger, and finally he looks up to him. “Really?”

Alex nods as he slouches back against the bed. His choice of book is Jane Austen’s _Emma_. “Yeah, I’m not that far, so no spoilers.”

Henry laughs, but he sounds genuinely delighted. “I think I might have quoted a big portion of this to you already.”

Alex closes his eyes for a moment, but he smiles. “Yeah, some of it seems familiar.”

He feels the movement of the mattress underneath him as Henry lies down, next to him. Still holding the book in his hands. “Have you been reading her works?”

“Yeah, I mean I wanted to know what all of the buzz was about, and she is your favourite,” Alex says and gestures between them, “and what’s important to you is important to me. I listened to _pride and prejudice_ as an audiobook while running.”

Henry’s face softens. “Did you like it?”

“I did. It was great and strangely relatable.”

He had genuinely enjoyed it, even though it had taken some time for him to really get into the story, but it ended up being entertaining, funny and sort of romantic. His favourite part had been recognising the lines that Henry keeps reciting to him sometimes.

“Oh, you mean the one where stiff British member of the nobility, against his family’s wishes, falls in love with short brunette who insults him constantly? I cannot see how that’s relatable,” Henry deadpans, but when Alex turns his head to look at him, he is already grinning beatifically.

“Shut up, I’m not that short,” Alex remarks, but he cups his face with his hand, “but I appreciate that I’m Elizabeth in this scenario,” he continues and kisses him.

The kiss is soft and slow, and a bit sloppy, just because their exhaustion pours into the kiss, too, but Alex doesn’t mind the laziness of it or the fact that the corner of the book is digging into his ribs.

“Thank you, it means a lot to me,” he whispers, and he can feel his breath on his lips.

Alex places a kiss on the tip of his nose, just because he can, and because he cannot find the words to tell him that he is just happy that he can do this, seemingly small, thing for him and make him happy with it. Besides, even before actually getting to know him through their faked friendship, he has always had the desire to know him better, and that desire still has not disappeared.

Reading his favourite books feel strangely intimate and it feels as if he was discovering a new side of him, and he likes the idea of it.

Henry yawns. “I definitely want to hear more of your thoughts once I’m awake enough to truly appreciate and comprehend them.”

Alex chuckles. “I was about to ask you how terrible it would be if the first thing we did here was to sleep?”

“Not terrible, at all. That’s an excellent idea.”

Alex shifts a little on the bed and it feels like he is drowning in the mattress. “Mhm, I thought so, too.”

Henry blinks his eyes slowly. “I’ve missed sleeping next to you. You have ruined me, love. I do not think I can sleep alone anymore.”

“That is my fault?” Alex laughs, softly.

Yet, he knows what he means. The bed feels to big, empty and cold without him. It is horrendous. He doesn’t know what to do with all that space and sometimes he keeps waking up in the middle of the night with the realization that he is not there.

Henry nods decisively. “Definitely. I slept badly before you, but I also didn’t know any better.”

He chuckles slightly, but it turns into a yawn quickly. “Well, now you do, and you’re lucky that I sleep best when certain someone is sprawled over me like an octopus.”

Henry’s laughter is soft and light, and Alex is quite sure he falls asleep to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was fun to write and a little bit shorter than rest of them! All the mistakes are mine, especially grammar and spelling ones because I proof read this while being very sleepy


	12. Ice skating

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 12! Thank you all who have been reading this and leaving kudos and comments! It definitely means a lot to me!

December 2020

Alex contemplates his every life decision as he steps on the smooth ice of the ice rink. It feels way too slippery underneath the blades of his skates and he feels like a baby giraffe who doesn’t know what to do with his limbs.

He grabs the railing with both of his hands, possibly with more force than necessary. He looks over his shoulder and sees Henry gracefully and quickly sliding and doing sharp turns that definitely defy at least some laws of the physics.

They are in an indoor ice rink, and it is otherwise desolated. The sounds of Henry’s skates against the ice seem to echo in a huge hall, and the air smells just a bit stuffy. Still, Henry looks happy as he skates around the rink in vast circles.

He is wearing a dark blue puffer coat, which makes his eyes look even bluer, and he has a thick mustard yellow woolly hat, and he is just a blur of colour to him as he skates past him.

It had been Henry’s idea, too, and he is the one who pulled some strings, so that they could come to the rink afterhours. Alex had been perfectly aware that ice isn’t a natural habitat for him, ice wasn’t exactly a common phenomenon back in Texas, but he has been to skating before and he knows he can skate, somehow, without falling on his ass immediately. It is sort of fun, too, but it has been years since he has done it.

But Henry is on a whole another level and he hadn’t been prepared for it.

Alex turns around, but he keeps grabbing to the railing with his right hand. “Did they fucking train you as a professional skater in case someone abolishes the monarchy, so you won’t be jobless?”

Henry laughs, properly, the sound of it is filling the rink. Laughing doesn’t do anything to his balance and he skates towards him.

“Maybe,” he replies, amusedly.

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” he mutters, but he cannot help but mirror his warm smile. His happiness and excitement is contagious.

At least, there is nobody around to witness his fumbling attempts to move on the ice. Henry offers his hand to him, and he takes it, gladly. Alex didn’t bother with a woolly hat, but the rink is surprisingly cold. At least he has the thickest gloves he owns and even though them, Henry’s mittens feel soft.

“It is infuriating how ridiculously good you are at these things,” Alex says, in a softer voice, than he means to, but it is truly becoming frustrating. His competitive personality cannot take it any longer.

Being bad at something in front of Henry is considerably less awful than in front of other people, though.

“I’m not ridiculously good,” he points out, with a chuckle, “I just know how to stand up without holding to the railing,” he adds, deadpan, but he offers his other hand too.

Alex glares at him, but he lets go off the railing. Henry holds both of his hands tightly, and starts to skate backwards, slowly, and pulls Alex with him.

They move slowly, but he feels a lot steadier when holding his hands. “Now you’re just showing off,” Alex says, without any real heat behind it. He is a little mesmerised by the softness and gracefulness of his movements.

Henry glances at their feet and looks up again, and a bright grin has found its way to his face. It dims a little as he starts to talk, but they still keep moving. “I used to do this a lot as a child. Dad used to take all of us to skating whenever he could. My granddad used to take him to skating when he was a child and he wanted to keep the tradition going.”

Alex heart melts a little at the thought of it, and Henry’s voice is so soft, too, and it is obviously a happy memory for him. He squeezes his hands a little tighter, but it is difficult because of the thickness of the gloves.

“Is that why you wanted to come here?”

Henry nods. “I haven’t been to skating since – he died,” his voice is still quiet and his breath is just slightly shaky, “and I, uh, thought that maybe with you, it would become a happier memory, too.”

“Oh,” Alex breathes out, half-involuntarily, just because he gets overwhelmed with the wave of emotions that wash over him, and he gets a sudden urge to hug him, and he hesitates only for a moment, before risking it all by letting go off his hands and pulling him into a hug.

The movement of pulling sends them twirling a little, but Henry manages to stop it. He hugs him back, immediately, and buries his face into the crook of his neck. “This can become a tradition for us, too,” Alex whispers, half against his soft woolly hat.

Henry stays quiet for a moment. “I’d like that,” he says, eventually, and his voice is a mix of sombre and wistfulness.

Alex pulls away slightly, and carefully, not to fall down, and he kisses his forehead. The corner of his mouth twitches into a gradual smile. “Are you gonna teach me or are you just gonna laugh at me?”

“I don’t need to teach you,” he says, “we can take it slow, and I _might_ laugh.” He offers both of his hands to him again, and Alex accepts, even though he is pretty sure he could do it on his own too, but any reason or excuse to hold is hand is a good one.

They move slowly, and Alex almost loses his balance a couple of times. His legs feel wobbly and his movements are not that dignified, and he even lets go of Henry’s hands, at some point. Still, it is fun.

He is laughing and Henry looks genuinely happy. He does laugh at him, and his fumbling attempts, and tries to teach him something about flexibility of knees, but for most of the time he just skates nearby and looks at him with so much love in his eyes, and Alex is pretty convinced that no one can blame him for having trouble with standing, when he is being looked like that.

Inevitably, he falls down, but he takes Henry down with him, accidently. Alex is not moving too fast, but he definitely has too much speed for his skills, and his attempts to slow it down are in vain and he crashes straight into him.

The impact causes Henry to lose his balance, spectacularly, and Alex falls on top of him, as he falls on his back. Alex’s elbow his throbbing with pain and his ankle feels a little sore, but otherwise he seems to be alright.

Henry groans a little next to him.

“Are you okay?” Alex asks, concern colouring his voice, because Henry did take most of the impact and he did fall straight onto the ice, while he fell mostly against Henry.

“Yeah,” Henry breathes out, and smiles a little, “my back is slightly sore,” he adds, shifting slightly. “Are you?”

Alex laughs again, half out of relief, and lies on the ice. “Yeah. This is the height of romance, body slamming you into the ice.”

Henry chuckles, but he groans immediately, too. “Don’t make me laugh,” he breathes out, holding his hand against his side. “When sweeping me off from my feet, metaphorically, isn’t enough anymore.”

“The next course of action obviously is forcibly sweeping you off from your feet and elbowing you into the stomach,” he concludes, deadpan, as he watches the metal structures of the ice rink’s ceiling.

Henry props himself against one of his elbows and reaches to kiss him. His lips are surprisingly warm against his and taste slightly like his sweat, but Alex doesn’t care. He grabs his arm and pulls him closer. Henry’s other hand has found his way to the back of his head, and Alex is pretty sure it is only there to protect his head from the ice, because he is considerate like that.

The kiss is tender and soft, and so full of love, and it is definitely making his heart beat a little faster. He is cupping Henry’s face, but his hand is touching his neck too, and he can feel his pulse underneath his fingers, and Henry laughs into the kiss.

“We need to get up, my ass is freezing,” he declares, because he can definitely feel the coldness of the ice against his back and legs. He is wearing a puffer jacket too, but it definitely isn’t warm enough to protect him from the coldness of the ice.

Henry rolls away and stands up quickly. He gives him an amused smile as he sits up and looks around himself, a little perplexedly. “I don’t know if I can get up,” he says.

The idea of trying to get up on the slippery surface without anything to lean on seems like a catastrophic idea.

“I’ve got you,” Henry whispers softly. He is bending slightly and offering him his arms and hands. “But if you make me fall again, then you’re on your own. I’ll ask Cash to carry you away from here,” he threatens, but the edge of it disappears because he keeps smiling fondly at him.

“Sure.”

Henry’s arms are surprisingly strong and getting up definitely isn’t that difficult when he can lean onto him while straightening his legs and gaining some sort of balance again. Once they are both standing up again, Alex lets go off his hands.

“Thank you,” he says.

Henry shakes his head slightly. “Thank you for agreeing to do this,” his voice has gone all soft again.

“This was fun,” he replies, truthfully. “And we can definitely do this again if you are prepared to possibly get body slammed again.”

Henry’s grin could possibly outshine the sun, and it is definitely outshining the industrial lights of the rink. “I think I can live with that, love.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was fun to write, again, but it was surprisingly difficult to describe the actual skating, but I do hope you liked this one!


	13. Cold hands part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 13!

Early December 2023

It is chilly and the slight breeze of wind is making Alex shiver, but he doesn’t move. The porch light is small but bright and it illuminates the otherwise dark yard.

He stares the yard that is so familiar to him, their Texas’ lake house, but he feels nothing but emptiness inside of him, even though he knows he should be overjoyed to be back there, and in a way he does, but everything else is weighing down on him with too much force.

He hears how the front door opens and closes softly. He hears footsteps and the next thing he knows is that a thick and warm blanket is placed on his shoulders. Alex wraps it around himself loosely and inches towards the other edge of the step, to make room for Henry.

He sits right next to him and breathes deeply. He glances up at the night sky but stays quiet. He looks unreal underneath the bright winter Texas night sky. He is wearing a festive cobalt blue Christmas sweater that has tiny snowmen on it and he has wrapped a knitted scarf, one made by Alex, on his neck. He is a much more appropriately dressed for the cold night than he is with pyjama pants and thin hoodie.

“What’s wrong?” He asks, softly, focusing his gaze back to Alex.

“Why would anything be wrong?” He asks, with a shrug, but he refuses to look at him.

“I’m glad you asked. I have a list prepared for you, I think you are rubbing off on me,” he says, still with the same soft tone of voice and holds his index finger up. “First of all, you answered a question with another question. Classic Alex evasion technique.”

Alex presses his lips into a line, but he does roll his eyes fondly. He feels weirdly seen because avoiding talking with Henry about it was his goal.

Henry is now holding two fingers up. “Second of all, it is middle of the night and you’re sitting on the porch of your family lake house, alone.”

He does make a compelling point. “I’m not alone, you’re here,” he argues, little flatly.

“Irrelevant,” Henry mutters gently, and holds up a third finger. “Third of all, you have been sort of –crestfallen for the last day and I love being here with you, but you usually want to come to Texas when you are extremely happy or when you feel like everything is falling apart, and I’m going to guess it is the latter one because you still seem sad.”

He sighs. He rubs the fabric of his pyjama pants with his thumb. Sometimes, he forgets how well he truly knows him, that he knows how to read him like an open book. Like a children’s picture book that is supposed to be effortless to read.

He usually loves that, and even know feeling of warmth is settling into his stomach, but he is still reluctant to actually talk about it with him.

Henry takes his hand into his and he almost hisses. “Christ your hand is cold,” he exclaims, but he immediately wraps both of his hands around his to warm it up.

Alex chuckles slightly. “That’s rich coming from you. Your hands are literally icicles.”

“Maybe but they are still warmer than yours currently,” he points out, softly.

It is true and Alex has maybe lost track of time. He isn’t quite sure how long he has sat there, but it was already dark when he decided to come there, and he definitely wasn’t prepared for sitting out in the cold. Gloves could have been a nice addition.

“You don’t have to tell me what’s wrong, if you don’t feel like it,” he breathes out, “but just know, that I’m here and I will listen.”

Alex bites his lower lip as he looks their hands, and he finally looks up to him. His eyes are so full of warmth and adoration, he almost has to look away, but he does not.

“It’s dumb,” he says, less than eloquently.

“As if I’d care about that.”

He exhales deeply. “If I tell you something, promise me you won’t be disappointed.”

He knows, deep down, that he can talk about anything him, and he is not so worried about his reaction generally, but just about the weight of disappointing yet another person.

“I promise,” he says, instantly, without hesitation.

“Wow, that was fast,” he remarks, but Henry only flashes him a smile.

“There are not very many things that could make me disappointed in you,” he explains, sincerity audible in his voice.

Alex stares at the huge tree nearby. “Hypothetically speaking, what would those be?”

He laughs and shakes his head. “I don’t even know. Maybe if you had killed someone, but I know I’d just end up helping you hide the body, marrying you and thus pleading diplomatic immunity for both of us.”

It makes him laugh too, and he loses some of the tension of his body. “I haven’t killed anybody,” he clarifies, “but it does warm my heart that you have a plan for it.”

“That’s reassuring. But seriously, love, it would be extremely difficult to make me disappointed in you or make me think any differently of you,” his voice is so gentle that it almost becomes a whisper.

“I didn’t – pass my environmental law exam,” he says, quickly, almost incoherently, “so yeah.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he says, but he doesn’t let go off his hand that is still trapped between his palms and fingers. He does lean a bit closer to kiss his temple.

He closes his eyes for a moment, just taking in his comforting touch, before opening them again, slowly. “I told you it was stupid,” he breathes out, and he can hear the defensiveness in his own voice, too.

“It’s not stupid,” he insists, without missing a beat, “you are clearly upset.”

He is upset. Maybe a bit more than upset. His eyes had stung, and he had to furiously blink tears away when he had read the email that declared that he had failed the exam. Sure, it was a ridiculously difficult exam, and he knows various other people who failed too, but mostly he had been just angry at himself.

He still is angry and upset. It is like all of the disappointment and frustration has formed into a knot in his stomach and they keep burning there, and it keeps making him snap at people and isolate himself.

He takes a shaky breath. “I feel like I have let everybody down. Everyone who has ever believed in me. My parents, the professors and you.”

Henry shakes his head furiously, but Alex cannot stop talking. It is like the floodgates would have opened and all of it, all the messy emotions that it has created in him, are bubbling out, uncontrollably.

“It is the one thing I’m supposed to be good at. Being smart and that I’m good, excellent, at studying. That it’s effortless for me and it is supposed to come naturally. No one is supposed to see how much I’m struggling,” he says, with a joyless laugh, “even the official white house update says I’m excelling in law school.”

He pauses, but only for a moment. “And everybody is expecting me to be this golden boy and all of it feels like a lie. And all of you are so proud of me, and I cannot be even worth of it.”

His breath is definitely shakier than before, but he feels strangely lighter, now that he got to dump all of that off his chest. Henry is warming his cold fingers with one hand only, and he massages the space between his shoulder blades with the other hand.

“You promised that you wouldn’t --,” he starts, when he remains quiet next to him, but he instantly starts to shake his head again.

“I’m not disappointed, nowhere near that,” he says, decisively, “I’m just thinking how to make you believe how wrong you are.”

Alex laughs weakly, half out of surprise and half out of some sort of relief.

“I might have to make another list.”

“I wouldn’t mind that,” Alex murmurs, and glances at their intertwined fingers.

“Okay,” he says, gently, and smiles warmly at him. “First point of the list. You have not let anybody down. You’re human, and everybody fails sometimes. I believe in you because you are you. Not because of what you do or how you perform academically.”

Alex bites his lip and suddenly, the stinging feeling in his eyes starts to return.

Henry kisses his knuckles, quickly and softly. His lips feel incredibly warm against his cold fingers. “Second point. When I say I’m proud of you, I don’t mean that I’d expect you to be perfect. You are not, you are you, and that is so much better than perfect.”

A few tears escape the corner of his eye, but he doesn’t bother wiping them away. He knows it is just exhaustion and relief mixing together with the force of his love and affection.

Henry’s smile becomes brighter and warmer. “I’m proud of you because I know you tried your best and that is always enough. Third point, you are always enough, no matter what.”

Alex rests his head against his shoulder. He wants to say something, but he cannot find the right words, and his mind is just a mess of emotions and he doesn’t know which feeling to deal with first.

“Fourth point, this will be a long list,” he says, flashing him a disarming grin, “I love that big, beautiful brain of yours. And you are smart and intelligent, and of course it reflects on your academic success, but it is not the only thing where it shows. You are so much more than your success in law school.”

“I would say you are biased,” he manages to say out, attempting to joke.

“Just slightly,” he admits, “but the point still stands. Your self-worth isn’t tied to how well you do in exams.”

“I know,” he says, “on some level.”

Logically, he knows it is the truth, and he would never be as harsh to someone else about failing an exam that he is being on himself currently, but still, it is hard to believe.

“Fifth point. I know how it feels to feel the pressure and expectations of an entire nation,” he continues, just as softly as before, “and I know you love being the first son and that they love you, but you don’t owe them anything. And honestly, I don’t think they would love you any less if you weren’t always the top of your class. I mean, it is not like you would be involved in an international sex scandal.”

Alex laughs, and it feel as if some of his anxiousness just evaporates with the laughter. “I know you’re right,” he says, and rubs his own face with his free hand, “it is just not that easy to internalize. The default setting of my brain is just trying to be the best.”

“I know,” he says, in a light tone and starts to take off his scarf, “and you can be upset. I’m not saying you should not be.”

Alex nods and glances at the red and blue knitted scarf that now is a bundle in Henry’s lap. He reaches for his other hand again and holds them both tightly.

“I’m glad you told me,” he says, eventually.

“You asked me,” he points out, matter-of-factly.

“I met you halfway,” he concludes, but Alex just huffs, because he is obviously just trying to make him feel better.

“And just know that no matter how much you show me of your struggle, I’m not going anywhere,” he adds, and he sounds so sure of it, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, as if he was stating that the earth is round.

“I know,” he says, truthfully, “but I just don’t want to be—too much, to burden and just complain.”

Their shared free time has been a scarcity and he didn’t want to spend all of it, just complaining about his stress and anxiety, he needed a distraction more than anything.

“You could never,” he says, simply, but with the same conviction as before. He wraps the scarf around his hands loosely, but in a way that it covers them completely. It immediately feels warmer, although he did prefer when he hold his hand.

“I’m sorry I dragged you all the way to Texas,” he says, with a lazy half-grin as he watches his hands.

“It’s a great place.”

“I thought I could forget the fail and the retake, and we could have a nice weekend, before I have to start revising again.”

He knows it is a bit foolish because it is exactly the emotional turmoil of failing that drove him to escape to the familiarity of their holiday home.

“We still can have a nice weekend,” he points out.

“Yeah, okay.”

“We could go inside so you won’t freeze,” he says, with a grin and nods towards his makeshift hand warmer, “I could cook something, and we could watch arguably the best _Star Wars_ film.”

Alex is once again overcome with the sudden realisation how much and how strongly he loves him. He knows him well enough that he isn’t even suggesting sleeping, even though that probably would be the sensible solution, but offering a distraction and comfort he so desperately craves.

“We can watch _Return of the Jedi_ and I can make you a list why it is not the best one and why it is _Empire Strikes Back,”_ he tells him, genuinely smiling at him, and trying to convey all the love he feels through that smile.

“Maybe I should make a third list for tonight, in its defence,” he says, with genuine and bubbly laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Am I projecting my own exam result stress on Alex? Possibly. Still, this was fun to write!


	14. Fireplace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 14!

Midnight, 23rd of December 2022

David looks up and Alex swears he manages to look perplexed as he turns his head from side to side and stares at him from the corner of the hotel room.

“I know, buddy,” he says to him, gently, and pets his head. His confusion is understandable, they just left a hotel and instead of going to the airport and eventually home, they just arrived at another hotel.

They had every intention to fly straight back to New York from Los Angeles as soon as they were able to leave the fundraiser gala, but when they were half way to the airport, LAX grounded each and every airplane due to oncoming storm, and they got stuck.

Attempting to find a decent hotel room for two a couple days before Christmas with an hour’s notice had been more difficult than they anticipated, but Shaan managed to pull some strings and found them one.

Alex unpacks David’s small but soft bed and places it next to their bed. He is probably going to sleep in the same as them, but he still places it there and dumps all of his soft and squeaky toys there. David immediately picks a sheep one and starts to play with it.

Alex sighs as he straightens up and looks around the room. It is a decent for a hotel room. A bit small, but it still has everything one might need in a hotel. The bed is ridiculously huge compared to the rest of the room, and the mattress feels hard and lumpy, but it could be worse.

The colours of the room are gloomy and bleak. The walls are beige, but all the textiles, from the bedcover to the curtains are different shades of grey. There are two tiny led candles on the windowsill, and Alex picks them up and turns them on. He places them back on the sill and stares at them. They are small, and not very festive, but it is the best they have.

He sits back on the bed and pulls his laptop out of his back. He quickly sets up the Netflix’s fireplace on it and puts it on the end of the bed. It looks pathetic there, but it is still something and it makes him laugh.

He rummages through the two wooden cupboards that the room has and finds two white mugs. He places them on the small nightstand and focuses his attention to the minibar of the room. As he is squatting in front of the fridge, the door opens and Henry steps in, carrying a plastic and takeaway bag.

“Hey,” Alex greets him, and peeks behind the fridge door. His hair seems damp and windswept. The shoulders of his jacket are wet, too, and Alex guesses the storm is already rolling in.

“Hey,” he says, placing his bags on the ground, and immediately taking off his jacket and shoes. He bends over to greet David, who is delightedly going around in circles around Henry and the bags. “Look what I brought to you,” he says excitedly to David and pulls a thick bone out of the plastic bag.

He takes it immediately and runs to his own bed to eat it.

Alex chooses a bottle of sparkling wine out of the minibar. The selection is not too wide, and he isn’t feeling particularly picky currently.

“The sushi restaurant was the closest one,” Henry explains, as he pulls two plastic containers filled with sushi from the paper bag. He dumps the chopsticks on top of the containers. He empties the plastic bag too, to the nearby table, and Alex can see that he at least bought a couple bottles of water, a few sandwiches, a bag of chips and a packet of Jaffa cakes. There are also two bananas that have seen better days.

“Wine?” Alex asks, holding the bottle and a mug up, as Henry is changing into his pyjamas. He nods as he pulls the old white t-shirt over his head.

Alex had already immediately changed into sweatpants and a comfy blue t-shirt, that says Claremont 2016 on it with bulk letters, when they had arrived at the hotel room.

Henry laughs as he sits on the bed and spots the fireplace on the laptop screen. Alex hands him the mug filled with the sparkling wine, and pours some into his own mug, too. He picks up the led candles and places one to both sides of the laptop.

He finally sits on the bed too and starts to open his plastic container. He flashes him a bright and grateful smile, when he realises that Henry had gotten his order exactly right. Henry isn’t very forgetful person, but it still warms his heart to realise that he knows his order by heart. He glances at his container, and he would have remembered his too.

“This is actually quite nice,” Henry remarks, as they both sit there, cross-legged, on the bed, with wine and sushi.

Alex grins. “Of course it is nice, it’s a candle-lit dinner in front of a fireplace,” he deadpans, and gestures towards the laptop with one chopstick.

Henry laughs, and his laughter makes the mattress shake slightly, but it is still enough to almost make Alex spill his wine.

He raises his mug up, and Henry does the same. “Happy Christmas Eve’s Eve,” he declares, with a bright smile.

They continue to eat, mostly in silence, but neither one of them can stop smiling, even though the only reason for smiling is the presence of each other, but it is definitely still enough to make them smile, genuinely. Besides, his smile has always been contagious.

Still, there is tension forming on his forehead, between his eyebrows, and he knows that he is thinking about something, a lot.

“What’s wrong?” Alex asks, as he puts yet another piece of sushi into his mouth.

Henry looks genuinely perplexed. “Nothing is wrong.”

Alex squints and gently touches his forehead, the small space between his eyebrows. “Your forehead tells differently. You’re thinking about something a lot.”

He looks a bit self-conscious for a moment, but it quickly goes away. “My forehead tells all of my secrets, huh?”

“Yes.”

He has watched him for so much that he basically knows every curve and movement of his face. He has traced his face with his fingers enough many times to know it as well as he does.

Henry pokes one piece of sushi with his chopstick, but he doesn’t pick it up. Instead, his lips twitch into a gradual, but enamoured, smile.

“It’s nothing bad. Quite the opposite of it, actually,” he says, slowly, but his smile doesn’t waver, “it’s just sometimes it strikes me that all of this is real,” he swallows and keeps a short pause. “This is not how I imagined my life to be when I was younger and I mean in it in the best way possible, but it’s still a lot to take in.”

There are sincerity and softness in his voice, but also wonder and awe.

“I didn’t imagine having a date night with you in front of a virtual fireplace on a lumpy mattress during a storm, but here we are,” he remarks, gently, as he sips his wine.

It tastes bitter on his tongue.

“It is a very specific scenario,” he admits, chuckling, “but you know what I mean.”

“I do.”

He knows that for a longest time he didn’t believe that he could ever be himself out in the public, or even be with someone who he genuinely loved, and now all of that has changed, and he knows it can be a lot to take in, even though it has been the reality for years now.

Alex bites his lower lip. “You deserve to be happy. In all the ways you imagined and in those ways you couldn’t even imagine.”

Henry’s gaze settles on his eyes. His smile is thin, but lopsided. “I suppose so, love.”

He plants a kiss on his cheek. “I know so.”

He keeps poking his remaining sushi pieces. “I—I’m quite happier than I ever imagined,” he admits in a whisper, his eyes are glistering, but his smile is genuine. He gently traces his jawline with his thumb.

“Me too,” he replies, without missing a beat, “and I’m glad it is our impromptu date night that has brought you to that realization.”

“I think it is more the company than the circumstances,” he says, softly, “although the fireplace is a nice touch.”

Alex laughs, and leans in to kiss him. They are both smiling, and his lips taste like the bitter wine and fish, but he barely even notices it because his mind too is just filled with adoration and happiness.

He had dreamed of going straight back to home because fundraisers are draining and make him exhausted every time, but right there and then, he is happy that the forces of nature had different plans. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This ended up being a little more fluffy than the previous one, which is probably a good thing


	15. Snowy escape

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 15! Almost half way through these lovely prompts

Mid-December 2023

Alex knows that the forecast predicted heavy snowfall for the area where the cabin is located, but still, he feels a little surprised the next morning as he drinks the second cup of coffee and stares out of the tall window.

There had been snow already when they arrived last night, but it was nothing compared to the blanket of snow that now covers the forest. Some snowflakes are still falling, slowly and in big bundles, but the snow on the ground seems fluffy and light, like powder.

The spruces and pines’ branches are also covered in heavy snow and the branches keep bending down underneath the weight of it, and the sky is bright grey, and the whole scene seems just so unreal, as if it was from a movie or a postcard and not existing right in front of him.

He hears Henry’s footsteps against the hardwood floor as he walks back to the kitchen. He kisses his head before he pours coffee for himself, too. He sits next to him on the kitchen table and his gaze darts to the fresh layer of snow.

His hair is just a little damp from the shower, but he looks content as he sips his coffee tentatively.

“It looks so beautiful and unreal,” Alex says to him.

“It does,” he agrees, “I don’t remember when I would have seen that much snow.”

Living in DC and New York had made him used to snow, and snowstorms, but usually in smaller amounts and shorter periods. There was so much snow outside that he didn’t want to even guess how long into the spiring it would be before it would even start to melt.

“Breakfast?” Henry asks, and Alex just nods. He keeps staring at the snow, and the way it glimmers and shines is almost captivating.

He hums happily as he walks around the kitchen, preparing the breakfast, and soon he hands him a plate full of toast and a bowl that has some yoghurt, muesli and berries. “Thank you,” he says, as he takes a bite out of the toast and Henry slides into the chair next to him.

They eat mostly in silence, and the blanket of snow seems to intensify the silence. It is so serene and quiet that it would be easy to imagine that they are the only people in the world. They spot two squirrels jumping from tree to tree, making snow fall from the branches. A bird lands on the porch and they bicker whether it is a Canada Jay as Henry insists or an American dipper as he believes. They do some quick googling and find out that the bird outside looks nothing like either of their guesses.

They decide to leave bird watching alone after that.

“Did you sleep well?” Alex asks, once he finishes breakfast. He curls his fingers around the handle of the coffee mug and drinks the rest of the lukewarm coffee.

“I did,” he says, “better than in weeks.” His smile is warm, and it reaches his eyes, too. He takes his hand into his. He kisses his knuckles.

“Me too,” he admits.

He had slept soundly, and he feels rested, but he did wake up at one point during the night. He still isn’t sure what woke him up. It had been quiet, almost eerily so, except the soft noises Henry kept making in his sleep.

He had been curled up next to him, his right arm sprawled across Alex’s chest, and Alex hadn’t dared to move so that he wouldn’t disturb his sleep. He had just looked at him. He had looked peaceful and younger than usually; he had almost seemed relaxed.

It had been difficult to tear his eyes away from him, and Alex had suddenly remembered the love letter Henry had written to him a few years back. It had been beautiful back then, but now he could relate to it more than ever.

He had felt content and peaceful in that moment, too, and it had not taken him too long to drift back to sleep.

He spots a small stain of yoghurt on Henry’s cheek and wipes it away with his thumb. He feels the roughness of his slight stubble underneath his finger.

He holds the tip of his chin and kisses him. Henry smiles as he kisses him, and Alex pulls his chair closer to his to reach his face better. The kisses they share at the breakfast table are all softness and adoration. They are all laughter and smiles. They are all gentle touches and warmth.

“We should go outside,” Henry whispers against his lips, when they finally pull apart for longer than a couple of seconds.

Alex glances outside, and grins at him brightly. “Yeah.”

Whole fifteen minutes later, they have put on so many layers of clothes and the thickest and warmest winter coats they own. Alex adores snow, but he isn’t a big fan of the coldness, and the freezing air hurts his cheeks immediately when they step outside.

The snow is almost knee deep and walking in it is slow and challenging. Still, they walk around a bit. They don’t get very far before Henry’s winter boot gets stuck somewhere in the deep snow, and he loses his balance. He falls on his face with a yelp.

Alex tries to go and help him, but even though the snow is incredibly soft, wading through it is rough and it is even more difficult when he keeps shaking with laughter. “Babe, are you okay?” He asks when he finally reaches him.

He is still laying on his stomach, but his face isn’t in the snow any longer. There is snow on his thick woolly hat and his face glimmers with melted snow, and his cheeks are reddish, but he is still grinning. “I’m fine.”

He tries to get up, but he sinks further into the snow as he moves. Alex helps him up, by dragging him up by pulling his arms, but he still cannot stop chuckling.

“Thank you for the empathy,” he says, as he is finally on his feet and they stand really close together. Their bodies are almost pressed together, and Henry has to look slightly down to really see his face. “It really warms my heart.”

Alex smirks at him. “You’re welcome.”

His smile gradually turns into a brilliant grin and instead of replying, he pulls Alex’s way too big beanie down on his face.

“Hey,” he exclaims, as he pulls the hat back up so that he can see something, but Henry is only laughing and looking up to the treetops and the few rays of sunlight that peek behind the thin clouds.

He raises his arms up, on both sides, and dramatically falls on his back. “I’m making a snow angel,” he declares as he waves his arms and legs.

He sinks deeper into snow, too, and getting up is still difficult, but he does it more gracefully than Henry did. He stands there, looking at his creation, and he appears next to him.

“That is quite a deformed angel,” he remarks, with a half-smile.

Alex mock-punches him in the triceps. “Excuse me, it is exquisite. A piece of art, truly.”

“It looks like certain first son fell on his ass and couldn’t get up,” he continues deadpan, but his eyes are shining with amusement.

“First of all, it is a great ass. Second of all, is it falling down if I did it on purpose?” He asks, turning his head to really look at him.

“Maybe you should become a philosopher if the law school doesn’t work out,” he remarks, but the way he looks at him makes Alex forget any witty comeback that had been on the tip of his tongue.

Most of the time when Henry looks at him, his gaze is soft, and his eyes are filled with love and adoration. Now, all of that is still present there, but there is something else, too. Something that looks suspiciously lot like awe and wonder.

He seriously looks as if he had the epiphany of the century and that, in the remote parts of Canadian woods, the whole universe would make sense to him.

“Why are you looking me like that?” Alex asks, softly and amusedly, and nudges him with his elbow.

“Like what?”

“Like that,” he repeats.

“Eloquent,” he says, “but I don’t know what you mean. This is a very normal look.”

Alex hums but glances him in the way that doesn’t leave any doubts that he would actually believe his answer. He knows what he saw, and he knows him well enough, too.

Henry sighs, but he doesn’t sound frustrated. If anything, he manages to make the sigh sound fond. He pulls his woolly hat back a bit. “I just really love you, that’s all.”

Alex grins again, although he feels like his cheeks might be frozen. “I know, and I love you, too. Did you just suddenly come to the realisation while criticizing my superb snow angel?”

He opens his mouth, but abruptly closes it again. “Something like that, love.”

Alex is a nosy person by his nature. He is curious and when something that he cannot explain comes across, it will not stop nagging in the corner of his mind until he finds out what it is. He is convinced there is something else about the look than the sudden realisation of the strength of his love, but he cannot put his finger on it. This time, he is willing to let it slide because it looked like a happy realisation, and he doesn’t want to pressure him too much.

He will figure it out at some point, or he will tell him.

“Fine, but can we go back inside? I don’t think I can feel my face any longer,” he states and touches his own cheek quickly.

Henry flashes him a lopsided grin.

“Sure, and I think we can come up with few ways to warm up again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, writing this fic: "why english language doesn't have this very specific word to type of snow that exists in my native language?
> 
> Despite my vocabulary frustrations, this was really nice prompt to write!


	16. Mulled wine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 16!

Early December 2021

The event is almost starting already when Alex slips into the huge conference hall and finds his seat from the backrow.

The place is full of people, and excited chatter fills the hall. Woman next to his security guard on the right side is juggling a laptop and a coffee cup, while simultaneously speaking to her phone in a hushed tone. She looks like she might be there for work-related reasons, and Alex suddenly feels relived that he doesn’t have to take notes, he can just relax and listen.

He leans into his chair and tilts his head as he looks at the stage that has been set up in front of the rows of chairs. The stage isn’t that big, and in the centre of it, there is a one chair and two chairs have been placed to each side of it, forming a half-circle of five chairs.

There are small tables in-between the chairs and delicate looking glass water jugs and glasses are on each table. He sees Henry grabbing a water jug nearby and pouring the water into a glass. He is sitting on the left end of the half-circle and all the other seats are taken by other, prominent LGBTQ+ activists, and the moderator of the panel.

He is too far to actually see his face, but he seems nervous. His shoulders look tense, as he drinks his water. Alex knows that he had been really excited when he had been asked to participate in a panel and following q&a session about LGBTQ+ youth homelessness and ways to combat it as one of the speakers, but he had been nervous too, because he wanted to do it right and properly.

It means a lot to him that the organizers of the event had asked him to participate because of his work, not because he is a foreign royalty.

The vast screen above the stage flickers on, and displays the participants sitting there, chatting to each other, on real time. Alex guesses that no one else notices his nervousness because he is smiling, confidently, and chatting with the other speakers, seemingly effortlessly.

But he notices that he keeps rubbing his thumb as he speaks, which is one of his nervous habits. Still, he looks incredible. He is wearing a simple suit, a dark blue and a white dress shirt with a matching a thin tie, and all of it suits him really well.

Alex didn’t tell him that he would come to see his panel. Half because he wanted to surprise him and half because he wasn’t sure if he could pull it off and he didn’t want to disappoint him. He had looked a little gutted when Alex had kissed him a goodbye in the morning and only wished him good luck.

The panel starts and the discussion flows easily. It is interesting, and Alex probably would have come to follow it even if Henry wasn’t one of the panellists. It is truly inspiring to listen to, and all of their thoughts and remarks are profound and well-argued, and the whole panel makes the issue of homelessness, and especially that of queer youth, to be an issue that could be eradicated any moment with the right use of proper resources.

Alex is so proud of him that he feels like his heart might combust at any given moment.

Obviously, they discuss the difficulties and issues of it, too, but overall, the tone of the discussion is uplifting and positive. The crowd’s questions follow and many of them are great and just prompt more discussion between the speakers and the crowd. It’s a delight to follow, and just like he suspected, he also wants to ask a question.

It is not as much about his own curiosity, but just knowing that he didn’t get a chance to make a certain point about the effectiveness of having the shelters do teamwork, despite being located in different cities. He has listened to him rambling about points he wants to make for a few weeks, and he knows them by heart, too. Yet, he knows that he doesn’t want to ask the question.

It would direct the attention to all wrong things and take the spotlight away from the importance of the topic. Just in case, he had asked one of his security guards, a young woman named Johanna, to possibly participate in the q&a and she had immediately agreed.

Alex leans into Cash to whisper the question and just few seconds later Johanna’s hand goes up a few rows in front of them. He tries his best to suppress his grin.

He can see on the big screen that Henry instantly recognises her and that there is confusion in his eyes, as if he wonders how likely it would be that Johanna had come there on her free time. His eyes scan the crowd quickly. Despite all of that, he answers the question and other speakers also pipe in and the discussion evolves into other topics.

The panel ends quite quickly after that and Alex is practically darting out of the hall, not wanting to attract any attention to himself. He texts Henry the number of the conference room he had booked from the same building where the discussion was taking place as he walks.

Fifteen minutes later and one short stop to one of the stalls outside the venue, Alex sits on the table of the conference room, waiting for him.

The room is small, and the huge table takes most of the space. There are a couple of office chairs and a screen on the wall, but otherwise the room is pretty plain.

The door opens slowly and perplexed looking Henry peaks in.

“Surprise,” Alex says, with a crooked smile when he closes the door behind him.

“Definitely a one,” he remarks, laughing in disbelief, and he crosses the space between the door and table quickly, and kisses him just as quickly.

“It went damn well,” he says, “it was amazing. _You_ were amazing,” he says, placing his hand on his shoulder. “I’m so proud of you.”

He says it as sincerely as he possibly can because it is the truth, and he is so happy for him too, because despite his initial nervousness, he had looked comfortable on the stage.

Henry bites down a pleased smile, but he holds his gaze. His eyes are glistering with something that Alex cannot name, but he looks happy. “Thank you for the question.”

“You’re very welcome,” he replies, without missing a beat, but he lets his smile drop, and slides his hand along his arm. The fabric of the suit jacket feels smooth underneath his palm. “I hope you don’t mind that I just appeared there without a warning.”

Henry shakes his head furiously. “Of course not, love. It was sweet. I was just surprised, I thought you couldn’t make it.”

“I didn’t want to break any promises,” he explains, as he tilts his head, “and I did want to surprise you. How are you feeling?”

He had to pull a few strings to be able to be there, but he genuinely wanted to do it. He did not do it out of obligation, but purely, because he wanted to show up for him.

“Good,” he says, and his face breaks into delighted smile. “Just slightly overwhelmed, but it was nice. I liked doing it.”

That smile alone is makes all the effort worth it.

Alex nods, but reaches for the cup beside him on the table. “My plan was also to bring you coffee, but next to the coffee stand there was this Scandinavian restaurant pop up stall and they thought I was queuing to there, and they were so excited, and long story short, it is not coffee, it is glögg,” he explains, and the word feels clumsy in his mouth and he is pretty sure he is butchering the pronunciation.

Henry laughs, but he takes the cup gladly. Alex picks up his own cup, too, and takes a sip of it, too. “They said it is like mulled wine, except includes no alcohol and some different spices.”

“So almost nothing like mulled wine,” Henry concludes, hiding his grin with the cup, but at least he is drinking it.

“Basically,” he says, and frowns deeply, “it has a horrible after taste.”

“It’s a bit odd,” he replies, diplomatically, but he can see from the face he is making as he finishes drinking it, that he isn’t a fan of it either.

Alex abandons the remaining of his drink and reaches into his coat pocket and pulls a packet of jaffa cakes out there. He tosses them to Henry. “You didn’t eat a proper breakfast, and it is already midday, so lunch,” he explains, gesturing towards the biscuit packet.

Henry is grinning as he looks up from the biscuit packet he is holding. “What would I do without you?”

“Probably get real coffee instead of weird Nordic beverages and actual lunch,” he muses with a half-shrug.

“Possibly, but I prefer this,” he replies, softly, and places the packet to the table. He grabs the lapels of his jacket and pulls him into kiss.

It is a soft and sweet kiss, and Alex is grabbing his arm and loosely wrapping his legs around him. His hand is on his neck, gently massaging the base of his skull and he feels like he is melting into his touch.

He eventually pulls away but lets his forehead to rest against his. “Thank you for coming, it really means a lot to me,” he whispers, and he can feel his breath on his skin.

His heart is soaring, and he definitely feels like he did the right thing by rescheduling his entire studying week just to be there for him. “Of course,” he whispers, back, and traces his jawline with his thumb, “anything for you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This wasn't the most difficult prompt to write, but it was still a bit hard, but still fun. I hope you like it!


	17. candles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 17!

Late November 2021

Alex walks across the hotel lobby.

It’s an objectively a nice hotel, with shiny marble floor and serene piano music playing in the background, and a lot of people with suitcases chatting with each other, but still Alex feels uneasy as he presses the button of the equally shiny metal lift.

He steps in and presses the button for the highest floor. The lift jerks gently upwards and he takes out his phone and browses through his frequently used contacts list.

He chooses the one that says _HRH prince dickhead_ completed with the poop emoji. He smiles weakly at the contact name he never bothered to change.

He quickly types the text before he loses the last bit of courage he has summoned.

_I’m sorry I was a dick_

It doesn’t take long before those three small dots appear to the screen, implying that Henry is replying to him.

_It’s okay_

It is immediately followed by another text.

_And I’m sorry too._

It is the most they have talked in a day. They had a pointless argument and it had happened just before Henry was due to leave for a state visit in Europe. It wasn’t really even a fight in Alex’s opinion but more just frustrations bubbling up.

Nobody had yelled or said anything particularly nasty, but the snapping and frustration had left him with feeling of uneasiness. He just remembers how horrible he felt afterwards as he was alone in the apartment.

He wants to think that it was meaningless. They were both exhausted and irritated, and they never have enough time just to be. But there is something different about it this time, something that is nagging the corner of his mind and not leaving him alone for a moment.

He tried to bury himself into schoolwork, but he couldn’t focus. He just kept glancing at his phone and his mind kept coming back to him.

He knows that reaching out is the hardest part because he knows himself and he knows Henry and they are both stubborn and unwilling to admit that they were wrong and that they might have hurt each other.

The lift makes a soft ping sound, and the doors slide open, revealing a long corridor with red carpet and grey walls.

_Yeah, so you know how good decisions I make when I’m stressed out?_

Alex doesn’t wait for a reply, but immediately sends another text.

_I’m at your hotel room door_

He stops behind the last door of the corridor. He takes a deep breath and just waits.

_In Sweden??_

The door opens almost immediately. Henry’s hair is messy, but it looks fluffy. He has already changed into his pyjamas, a pair of grey sweatpants and plain dark blue t-shirt, which makes sense as it is closer to midnight. He looks a little weary, but mostly he just looks perplexed.

“I think I said at one point that we should cut it down with the dramatic transatlantic flights, but it seems I cannot stop.”

He is still holding the doorknob in his hand, and simply stares at him, until his face softens a little. “Alex,” he breathes out, and it is enough to make Alex lose the last bit of restraint he had, and he hugs him so hard that he staggers backwards a little.

He hears the door close behind him, and then Henry’s arms are around him, tightly. He has his face against his hair and when he breathes out, Alex can feel himself relax a bit. He instantly feels safer, but Henry manages to also breakdown whatever wall he has managed to put up during the past day.

“Hi,” Henry whispers, against his hair when his breathing becomes a little hitched. He is rubbing his shoulder with his thumb.

“Hey,” he says, back quietly. “Sorry for barging in like this, without a warning,” he continues, mostly against his shoulder and the soft fabric of his t-shirt.

“Do you think I would actually mind?” Henry asks, his voice is still soft but coloured by amusement.

It helps his anxious energy a little. Still, he is reluctant of letting him go, and he shrugs. “I don’t know. This is your job, a bit different than just coming unannounced to the Buckingham Palace.”

“You’re the only one who comes there unannounced,” he remarks, gently, “but of course I don’t mind. I always want you here with me. I almost called you before you showed up. I wasn’t exactly sure if you wanted to hear from me yet.”

Alex hugs him little tighter, before pulling away. “I always want to hear from you, no matter what,” he says, with more serious tone. 

It is the truth. Sure, they don’t fight that often. They bicker a lot, but that is a different thing and just the way their dynamic has always been, but he cannot imagine a scenario where he wouldn’t want to hear from him after an argument.

He gives him a tired half-smile. “I thought you might be a little sick of me, and that you needed space.”

His words cause small fractures to appear to his heart. He cannot help but hug him again. “Never and I though we were arguing about how we never have enough time for each other.”

“Yes,” he breathes out, “and I truly am sorry.”

“I know,” he replies, “and me too.”

They stay like that for a moment, neither one of them daring to move. He feels surprisingly content there and generally Henry’s presence always grounds him. Makes rest of the buzzing world a little quieter.

Eventually Henry pulls away, and studies him with his gaze. “When was the last time you slept?”

Alex stares at the wall intensively before turning his head to look at him. “I don’t know,” he huffs.

Generally, sleep doesn’t come easy to him. Anxiousness, restless energy and over-thinking really don’t make falling asleep any easier. Also, the whole business of crossing multiple time zones makes it a bit more confusing.

“That is always a good sign,” he says, softly, “and here’s a radical idea. What if you tried to sleep? Might make you feel better.”

Alex gives him a weak smile. “I don’t know what makes you say that.”

Henry kisses his forehead. “I wonder, and please go to sleep. I’ll finish going through my speech for tomorrow, but I’ll join you then. The bed is definitely big enough for two.”

The bed is enormous, and the duvets look soft and warm.

Alex feels something that he could mistake for pang of guilt, when Henry speaks about his royal duties. Yet, he just nods. He has no energy to present counter arguments and he really needs to sleep.

He falls asleep before Henry finishes his work, but he is startled from his sleep when he finally crawls into the bed. He lightly kisses his neck and loosely wraps his arms around him. He knows he might have a little less trouble falling asleep tonight.

***

Alex has no idea how long he has slept, all he knows that his headache is gone, the dull exhaustion in his chest has eased a bit and that his shoulders are stiff.

He stretches a bit and stares at the heavy-looking grey curtains embarrassingly long as his brain catches up with last night’s events. He turns around underneath the duvet and sees Henry across the room. He is already almost ready for the day. His hair is damp, but he is already wearing fancy looking black pants and a white button-up.

Alex merely groans into a pillow. “I feel fucking ridiculous.”

Yesterday, all justification he needed for flying to Stockholm was that he was tired, he missed him, and he felt awful and uneasy. In retrospect, he has no damn idea why he didn’t just call him. Whole flying across the Atlantic unannounced and crashing his hotel seems dramatic now, but as Henry smiles at him the brightest smile that could outshine the sun, and he is little glad he did it anyway.

Henry leans on to the bed and reaches to kiss his forehead. “Please do not. It was only slightly dramatic, but sweet,” he says, and his voice is light.

Alex groans against the pillow, again.

“You’re cute when you get embarrassed,” he remarks, with way too much cheer.

Alex looks at him and frowns enough to make his nose scrunch. “I don’t get embarrassed,” he says, “I’m wallowing in self-pity.”

Henry chuckles. “It sounds same to me, but as you say.”

Alex finally sits up and looks around the room. There are Henry’s clothes on the bed and on the backrest of one of the chairs, but his attention is caught by a small table in the middle of the room. He knows he was sleepy and just a bit distraught yesterday when he arrived, but he is convinced he would remember if there had been a table.

There are two plates full of breakfast food, different types of bread, eggs, fruits and some sort of pastries. There is a coffee pot and glasses full of water and orange juice. The table is pretty full, but there is also led candles there, at all possible spaces.

His eyes dart between the table and Henry.

He shrugs a little, but his smile is crooked. “I figured that if we want time, we have to make time. So, do you want to have breakfast with me?” He asks, nodding towards the table.

“Yeah, of course,” he replies as he gets up from the way too soft bed. “Where did you get the candles from?” He asks, curiously as he sits down at the table.

“They don’t allow real ones in the hotel premises,” he explains, “but I got those from the breakfast hall. Turns out you can get almost anything if you ask nicely and are a foreign royalty on a state visit,” he remarks, a little slyly.

Alex laughs as he sips his steaming hot coffee. “This is ridiculous, but I love it.”

Henry’s smile seems pleased and delighted. “I’m glad.”

“You didn’t have to all of this, though,” he says, his mouth half-full of bread.

“I know, but I wanted to. You flew almost 4000 miles just because you thought I might be upset, and you wanted to apologize. Getting breakfast and a few candles is the least I could do.”

In his mind, the whole flight had been exhaustion fuelled stress decision, but when he puts it like that it sounds almost sweet, and it is an accurate description of the events, too. It had been more about his feelings than his own.

“Are you busy today?”

Henry sighs a little. “I’m visiting some museum and I have my speech there. Then I visit a kindergarten and possibly embarrass myself attempting to talk some Swedish to them, and then there is a dinner with the crown princess and her husband.”

Alex nods as he keeps sipping his coffee. His day sounds busy, and he still feels a little guilty, crashing his job thing uninvited.

“You could come to the dinner, if you want,” Henry suggests with a grin, “you were already mentioned in the first invitation, I have a growing suspicion that the crown princess and her husband like you more than me,” he says with a laugh.

“Sure, it could be nice,” he agrees, “if you want me there.”

He has met them a few times and they are friendly and lovely people. Most of the royals he has met have turned out to be nice and friendly, even more so since he started dating one of their own. He got a whole new support group when ordinary-people-married-into-the-royal-families group accepted him as one of their own, even though he and Henry have not yet tied the knot and are not even officially engaged. They have even their own group chat.

“I always want you there,” he repeats, with the same soft tone as the previous night and reaches for his hand.

He knows the feeling, too. They have become a unit, a team of sorts. He can be alone and do things on his own, but he feels more whole when he is with him. They complete each other and his presence always make him feel more like himself.

“Okay,” he replies, just as softly.

***

Alex stumbles upon a video of Henry’s kindergarten visit when he scrolls on his phone during his study break. He does embarrass himself as he attempts to talk in Swedish. Alex is no expert of the language, but it sounds a little funny and the children are laughing.

The children start asking him questions, as the teachers translate them to Henry and his answers to the kids. They ask all sort of questions, like how old he is, does he have a dog, does he have siblings, what is his favourite colour and does he like biscuits and so on. Henry answers all of them as if they were the most important questions ever asked.

Then a little girl asks if he has a princess since he is a prince. The teacher translating the question seems a bit awkward and keeps smiling an apologetic smile, but Henry’s warm smile doesn’t waver. He just shakes his head and says no.

The girl looks thoughtful but puts her hand up again. She says something in Swedish and the teachers apologetic smile vanishes. “She wants to know if you a have a prince then?”

Henry’s smile widens and Alex has to look away from his phone, because he is so in love that it hurts. “Yes, I do,” Henry replies on the video, and the girl seems pleased with the answer.

They move on and the next child is asking if he likes skiing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep filling these prompts so vaguely, but here it is. This ended up being a bit longer than I intended but this was fun as always


	18. Music

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 18!

A few days before Christmas, 2023

Alex glances at his phone, again, he has lost count of how many times he has done it in the last half an hour. He sighs as he puts his phone down to the kitchen counter. David is standing against the kitchen table and sniffing the Chinese take-out that Alex ordered and placed on two plates.

He leans to look out of the window, but all he can see is a quiet street and some patches of unmelted snow. A car passes by, but it doesn’t stop. Alex sighs and picks up his phone again. He should just call him.

Henry told him that he was going to visit the shelter and then come back home, and that he was going to be home by six. It is already half past six and there is no trace of Henry.

Half an hour is not a long time, and Alex doesn’t feel like he has been stood up or forgotten, but there is a part of his mind that keeps worrying about him.

He just has thing feeling he cannot shake.

He is extremely punctual person, and he always tries his best to be on time, and he doesn’t like breaking promises, especially those that he makes to him. He knows New York traffic can be terrible, and this isn’t exactly anything they would have actually planned and that they would absolutely have to be in certain place in certain time.

It’s just a dinner at home, but there is still something about the whole thing that makes Alex feel uneasy. It isn’t like him to be late and not let him know.

His mind’s restlessness has spread to his hands and he starts to drum his fingers against the kitchen counter. He decides he has had enough of uncertainty, and he selects his number and presses the video chat button.

It rings for a moment, a bit longer than usually, and when it finally connects, the image is blurry. Still, he feels relieved when he sees him on the screen.

“Hey, are you okay? _Where_ are you?”

“Hi, I’m okay. I’m stuck in a lift, I’m afraid,” Henry explains, and it looks like he is smiling apologetically.

“A lift?” He echoes, half in disbelief.

Henry turns his camera around, and Alex can see the shiny metallic walls of the elevator and the doors that definitely are not building anywhere. Shaan is in the corner, pressing the alarm button with his thumb. He looks a bit fed up with the situation. “Hello, Alex.”

There is a small dark blue shopping back next to his feet on the floor. It is delicate looking, and it looks like it could be from jewellery store. Alex guesses he has been multitasking and bought a present for Zahra.

“Hey,” he says back, and Henry is turning the camera around again.

“The mall’s security team said that it’s stuck in between floors, so it will take a bit longer before they can fix it,” he explains, with a shrug.

“Isn’t it a bit late for Christmas shopping?” Alex asks, with a chuckle. The fact that he is stuck in a lift in a mall explains also why he can hear a cover version of _jingle bells_ playing in the background.

“It is,” he admits, and even though the connection is still bit blurry, something that suspiciously looks like uncertainty crosses his face, but doesn’t linger there. “I just picked up a few things that Bea asked for.”

In the distance, _jingle bells_ stops, but it is immediately followed by a version of _Here comes Santa Claus_.

Alex nods, but his lips twitch into gradual half-smile. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

Henry laughs. “Define okay. I have been stuck here for ten minutes, and the lift plays only two songs. I’ve heard them both almost five times now.”

His voice sounds amused, but still longsuffering.

Alex cannot help but chuckle, too. “It’s funny. I called because I had a feeling that something had happened, and maybe it was just our deeper connection telling me you are being driven to brink of madness by repetitive Christmas carols.”

Usually, the lifts at the mall play smooth and quiet jazz music, but somebody has apparently decided that during holiday season, the music should be replaced by Christmas carols. Unfortunately, it seems that the playlist has not been designed for those poor souls who get stuck there.

“Maybe that is what people mean by soulmates,” Henry suggests as he sits on the lift floor and leans against the wall.

 _Jingle bells_ starts to blare again. The children choir’s voices are so bright, they make Alex’s ears hurt too, even though he only hears the slightly muffled version through phone.

Henry groans a little.

“First of all, this, what we have, is some sort of soulmate level shit. Second of all, knowing when another is getting annoyed is a pretty good definition of it,” he remarks, with a wide grin.

“I agree,” he replies, but he keeps a small pause. “Do you believe in soulmates?”

He sounds genuinely sincere and curious, as if he had been thinking about it for a lot longer, and not just because he is stuck in the Christmas carol hell.

He also knows that it is very cliché thing to believe in true love and soulmates, but it is difficult not to believe in any of those stuff when he has Henry. Ever since they truly started talking via texts, emails and late-night phone calls, he has felt that they were connected somehow.

That he truly understands him and sees through all of his walls and defences. He always makes Alex feel truly seen. That he understands the essence of him.

As if everything just clicked into their right places, as if he had found the missing piece of his soul in him. The thing they have felt special and exciting immediately. As his feelings developed, the connection started to feel raw, burning and untamed, but still full of warmth. He knows that when he just looks at him, everything feels a bit better and he wouldn’t care if the world stopped.

“I do,” he admits, “not in a way that we would not have a free will at all, but in a way that some people are more connected on a different level, and it makes it easier to love,” he says, and he feels a bit frustrated because he feels like he cannot put his thoughts into words as eloquently as he wants to.

“This was inevitable. Us. And I don’t mean the attraction and all of that, but love. And it was easy, if you don’t consider all the circumstances, but the falling in love part? Easiest thing I’ve ever fucking done. It took me a while to understand it myself, but otherwise it was so effortless that it’s almost embarrassing,” he adds.

Henry makes a sound that sounds like a mix of snort and laughter. “That does feel quite accurate.”

Alex smiles at him. “Do you believe in soulmates?”

His gaze darts somewhere behind his phone, but he quickly looks at him again. “You make it impossible not to,” he says, simply, but enamoured.

Alex’s heart might skip a beat at that, but he just laughs happily. “Yeah, you too.”

“I’m sorry I stood you up,” he says, and running his hand through his hair, and sighing exasperatedly.

“Is it even that if it is our home and you are physically unable to be here?” He asks, because the last thing he wants is him to feel guilty over something he cannot control.

“I don’t know,” he admits, “but I am still sorry.”

He rolls his eyes fondly. “If it makes you feel better, you’re forgiven. Even if there is nothing to forgive.”

He flashes him a quick smile. Alex can hear a loud banging noise and then it stops. He can make out Shaan’s voice in the background. Henry looks towards the doors, but nothing seems to happen, and the lift seems to stay where it has been. “You can eat without me, if you want. The food is probably cold already, though.”

Alex waves his hand dismissively. “We have a microwave. We can just warm it up when you get home.”

He frowns as the banging noises continue and mix with _Here Comes Santa Claus_. “I have no idea how long it will take.”

“Luckily, I have nowhere else to be since my date night got postponed,” Alex says, pulling himself a chair. He sits on it. “So, I can hang out with you.”

“You don’t have to,” he says, gently and a bit defeatedly, but he is definitely biting down a smile.

“I know,” he replies, easily, “but there is no way in hell I’m going to let you suffer alone the two arguably worst Christmas carols on repeat.”

He knows there is not much he can do, but at least it can be joint suffering.

“Romantic,” he muses, softly.

 _Jingle bells_ starts playing again, just as cheerily as before.

“Isn’t it?” He asks, with a brilliant grin.

It ends up taking another half an hour until he gets out of the elevator. Alex has lost count how many times he has heard the Christmas carols and he knows that if he hears either one of them again, he will scream. But they talk most of the time, about everything and anything. They talk about their days and Alex shows David to him via the video and it is not much, but he hopes it makes his waiting a little more bearable.

When he gets home, he is so ecstatic that he doesn’t even realise that Henry has no shopping bags, or any presents to Bea, with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was fun to write (although I do got those two christmas carols stuck on my head now) and I can't believe these chapters are finally starting to be somewhat connected. Anyway, I hope you liked this and thank you so much for everyone who has been reading and leaving kudos and kind words in the comments!


	19. baking part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 19!

December 2022

When one of the kids who had been at the shelter a few years ago and managed to get help, support and a loving home, had created a social media challenge of assembling a gingerbread house to raise money for the shelters, they had immediately agreed to participate.

It didn’t seem too difficult, assemble the house and decorate it. Pez and Bea had already done their owns and posted pictures of picturesque, neat, adorable and beautifully decorated gingerbread houses on their Instagram.

“This doesn’t look too hard,” Alex muses as he looks at the different parts of the gingerbread house that are spread on their kitchen table along with the royal icing and various candies for decorations.

Henry hums in agreement on the other side of the table as he picks up one of the wall pieces and puts lots of royal icing on the other end of it and then presses it tightly against the bottom piece of the house. It stays, but a few seconds later it falls down with a thump.

It is already closer to midnight and it is snowing slightly outside. He can see the snowflakes falling slowly from the kitchen window, and everything feels quiet and peaceful, but he also thinks he might have jinxed the whole thing from the start by saying that it won’t be too difficult.

“Okay,” he says, looking at the wall which now lies horizontally on the bottom piece.

“More glue?” He suggests, and he is already holding the royal icing package and squeezing it. He puts more of it to the wall piece, but also to the bottom piece. This time it seems to stay up, but it also looks messy as there is icing gushing from underneath the wall.

Henry’s hand hovers near the wall, as if ready to catch it if falls again. “What if I hold it until we have another wall up?”

“That’s a valid idea,” he agrees, immediately picking up an end wall piece. He uses possibly even more glue than Henry did, but it seems to hold, and he can remove his hand.

Alex picks up the other end wall piece, but it breaks into two parts in his hands. “No,” he says, defeatedly and looks up to him.

He is definitely having hard time not bursting out in laughter, and he rubs his eyes. “We need more glue,” he says, sounding slightly amused, and hands the royal icing to him.

“This isn’t too bad,” he declares, looking at the two separate pieces. “This is fixable. It is like that Japanese art thing where they fix broken things with gold. It will look even better when I’m done with this,” he decides.

“Kintsugi shall save this gingerbread house,” he agrees, but even though Alex is already focused on gluing the two parts together, he can hear from his voice that he is smiling.

“Embracing imperfections and all that,” he says, and flashing a grin at him, before going back to fixing the wall.

It seems straightforward enough, but of course it isn’t. He uses a lot of glue, but the wall becomes crooked and he can spot small cracks in the parts that are, at least now, still intact. He tries to flatten the wall, but the cracks get worse.

He keeps staring at the wall, as if his gaze could magically fi it. “Love,” Henry says, little unsurely, but he still sounds like is on the verge of laughter again, “I think I made a small strategic error.”

“What?”

“I used one of the roof pieces as a wall,” he says, and he cannot hold his laughter back anymore.

It is such beautiful sound, and it fills their kitchen, and for a moment, Alex doesn’t care about anything else. He laughs too as Henry waves the other wall in his hand. That piece has holes that are meant to be windows.

The actual roof piece is soundly glued to the bottom and to another wall piece. There is no way they are able to pull it out without breaking it into million pieces. ”It’s fine. This gingerbread house now has skylight windows,” he says, chuckling.

“It is quite festive,” he says, deadpan, but picks up the last wall piece that Alex had just fixed. It doesn’t crumble when he picks it up and he considers it progress if not a success.

All of the walls are up, and they seem to stay up, although they stare at it intensively, almost not daring to breathe, but eventually relaxing.

“This sort of resembles furniture assembling,” Henry muses as he puts the remaining actual roof piece on the top of it.

“The ultimate relationship tests, assembling Ikea furniture and gingerbread houses,” he remarks and stares at the roof part, which Henry is still gently pressing against rest of the house.

“At least this does not have one of those hieroglyphical instruction leaflets that we always interpret differently,” he says.

The pictures are confusing, and most of the time Alex doesn’t even bother reading them till the end, but still, all of their furniture are assembled well enough.

“But in this one the parts break when you touch them,” he groans as he leans against the table. Henry moves his hand carefully and the roof piece stays where it supposed to be.

“It was just one piece, sweetheart,” Henry points out softly.

As soon as he says it, the roof piece falls off and it gets enough momentum to slide along the table and fall off the table. Awful cracking sounds follow.

Alex buries his face in his hands. “I don’t want to look. I _refuse_ to look,” he mumbles against his hands in desperation.

“I’ll look,” Henry says, and Alex hears how he moves one of the chairs. The fact that he starts to laugh underneath the table is not a good sign in Alex’s opinion.

He lets his hands drop to the table. Henry places one bigger piece back to the table. “I’m afraid it is in seven pieces,” he says, as he picks up more pieces, “and David stole one piece,” he says cheerfully as he stands up. David immediately darts out of the kitchen.

The house, if it can even be called at that, looks pathetic and ridiculous, but still, it makes him snicker. Henry’s laughter is too contagious. “How are we so bad at this?”

“I honestly don’t know,” he says, as he sits next to him on the other chair, “it is a disaster.”

Alex leans onto him and they end up resting their heads against each other. “At least it is our disaster,” he says, little wistfully. “But we will assemble it. We promised.”

“I know,” he says, quietly, and turns his head to kiss his temple. “I think we might need a new strategy.”

Alex grins lazily. “Oh, because more glue worked so wonderfully?”

He nudges him gently with his elbow. “Don’t ridicule excessive use of icing, it gave us walls that don’t fall.”

“And of those walls is a roof piece, that is an inch lower than rest of the walls,” he points out, but the grin doesn’t leave his face.

“Unimportant details,” he huffs, but it ends up sounding amused and fond.

“What if we keep the more glue plan, but just cover all of the glue and cracks with other icing and decorations?” Alex suggests, as he tilts his head to side.

“Deception,” he concludes with a crooked grin, “I rather like that plan.”

They manage to get the roof up, and they end up gluing chocolate pastilles together and cover the biggest holes with them. Miraculously, the roof doesn’t give in when Henry places the chimney on top of it. They use so much icing. The whole gingerbread house is eventually covered in icing. They use black icing on the roof, but they run out of the red icing with the walls, and one wall ends up being yellow and another forest green.

Alex finishes adding the icing to one of the walls, when he realises that his fingertips feel sticky and that he cannot move them. Henry is working on the other side of the house, trying to cover the lumpiest part of the yellow icing with more chocolate pastilles.

“Babe,” Alex says, with a shit-eating grin, “guess what?”

“What?”

“I glued my fingers to the house,” he says, cheerily.

Henry just glares at him, but his face softens and eventually breaks into an amused smile.

“Please tell me you’re kidding.”

“I am not.”

Henry walks up to him and examines his hand and the index and middle finger that are covered in icing. “Maybe you should just pull it away,” he suggest, “gently.”

“Here goes nothing,” he declares and tentatively pulls his hand. His fingers get free relatively easily and nothing seems to happen. The house stays intact, until five seconds the chimney collapses, taking a large bit of the roof with it. Combined with the skylight windows, over half of the roof is missing.

“Roofs are overrated, right?” Alex asks, unable to tear his gaze away from the destroyed roof.

“Oh, definitely,” he agrees, with a soft sigh. “It looks unsalvageable.”

“I think the roof is a lost cause,” he agrees, and peaks into the house through the roof hole. There are countless pieces inside the house. “Nothing can be done.”

“We should just decorate it and the yard slightly more, and maybe it is done then,” he suggests, “some gingerbread houses simply do not have roofs.”

“We could be trendsetters,” he jokes as he picks up more pastilles and starts to glue them to the wall.

They use all the pastilles that they had bought and use a lot of powdered sugar to make it look as if the house is covered in snow. When it is finally done, it doesn’t look even that bad, if one doesn’t consider that the walls are uneven and crooked and that the roof has a huge hole in it and that the walls are covered in thick layer of different coloured lumpy icing.

Alex snaps a photo of it as soon as they are done because he fears that if they wait a minute longer, the walls might collapse, too.

“If you were a real estate agent, what would you write in the description?” Alex asks, when they have finished cleaning up and they are drinking tea. He leans onto the kitchen counter because neither of them dares to go too close to the house.

“Unique,” Henry says, smiling into his tea.

“Absolutely. Lots of light coming in,” he snorts, as his gaze finds the roof hole.

“Innovative architectural choices,” he suggests.

“Asymmetrical.”

 _“Slight_ issues with the roof and stability of the structures,” Henry says, placing his tea mug on the counter.

“A bit of a fixer upper,” Alex murmurs as Henry wraps his arms around him, and he kisses his cheek. “It’s not even that bad. I think it is growing on me.”

Henry hums in agreement. “It’s definitely _ours.”_

Alex can sort of understand what he means by that. He can see both of their handiwork in the decorations, the more meticulous ones made by Henry and the more ambiguous ones made by him, but also the different parts seemingly do not match together.

Similarly, some people keep thinking that they don’t fit together and that they, and their lives, are too outrageously different to match, but they are still proving them wrong, and making it work.

“I know,” he says, softly, “and I wouldn’t have done this with anyone else. So, consider yourself lucky,” he adds deadpan, but leans into his touch more.

“I do,” he says quietly, but contentedly, and watches as Alex posts the picture of their messy gingerbread house to his Instagram account.

They wake up to a buzzfeed article with the headline “ _Prince Henry and First Son Alex’s hilarious gingerbread house failure is so relatable_ ”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure if assembling a gingerbread house constitutes as baking, but anyways, this was really fun to write, but still a bit difficult. I hope you like it!


	20. Ugly sweater

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 20!

Mid-December 2022

Alex feels almost some sort of dread as he places his key into the lock and opens the door. He is always happy to be home and see him, and they have worked hard to make their home a safe haven for both of them, where they can let their guards down, and it definitely is a happy place for him, and a place full of love.

All of those feelings associated with happiness and safety are still the strongest in his mind as he kicks off his winter shoes and unwraps his scarf and takes off his coat. Any dread he feels originates only from his own forgetfulness and the consequences of that.

He had spent most of the day at the library, finishing one of his last essays, and the weather had been freezing in the morning, and he had just picked the softest and warmest sweater he could find. That had been a large sweater knitted by Henry.

He had wanted some comfort for the last essay writing marathon and the sweater provided exactly that. It reminds him of him, and it makes him feel loved. The sleeves are slightly too long, but he doesn’t mind it because he can keep his hands inside the sleeves, and he likes doing that. It is also extremely comfy to wear and he just adores it.

What he failed to remember was that it was the national ugly sweater day, and that the student organization of the law school had announced an ugly sweater competition weeks before and a committee of judges had been strolling around the campus to choose the winners.

Alex had just looked up confusedly from the pile of books he had spread on the table next to his laptop, when one of the judges had placed a small trophy proudly on the edge of his table. “Congratulations, Alex! You have won the honorary mention in the ugly sweater competition,” one of the girls had announced cheerily.

Alex had blinked at the three people standing in front of him, before he realised to pick up the tiny trophy. The engraving said _the_ _ugliest color._

Alex had wanted to groan and argue that the colour is not that horrible. Sure, it is deep yellow, but it still isn’t ugly. Henry had picked the colour and when he had given the sweater to him, he had explained that the had chosen the colour because it reminded him of him. Because it was a combination of brightness and warmth, and all consuming, just like him.

He had stared the trophy in his hands, and he had tried to open his mouth to explain that there has been a mistake and that he didn’t intended to participate, but as soon as he had looked up from the trophy, one of the judges had snapped a picture of him, with the trophy, and declared that it will be published on the student organization’s snapchat and before he could have protested, they had already rushed away, wishing him happy holidays.

Alex still feels bad, and he doesn’t want to upset Henry, because he genuinely appreciates that he knitted him a whole sweater and he actually likes it. Still, he knows he has to tell him.

Alex walks into living room, but it is dimly lit and empty. He sees the shimmer of the kitchen lamp and he hears soft clicks of a laptop’s keyboard, and he finds Henry there, working something on his laptop and a cup of tea abandoned next to him on the wooden kitchen table.

“Hey,” Alex says as he walks into kitchen.

He looks up and his eyes lit up as he sees him. “Hey, did you finish the essay?” He asks, and he reaches for his hand, and Alex lets him to hold it.

Alex ruffles his own hair with his free hand. “Yeah, I just submitted it before I left the library,” he says, sounding almost distraught to his own ears too and reaches for his bag that still hangs on his shoulder and pulls out the trophy and hands it to him.

Henry looks at it curiously and he looks perplexed as he reads the text on it, but then his eyes dart to the sweater he is wearing, and he bursts out laughing.

“I’m so sorry,” Alex says, shaking his head, “I completely forgot the competition was today,” he offers as an explanation and squeezes his hand a little tighter.

Henry doesn’t seem too bothered, he seems more amused and delighted as he examines the trophy. “This is the first award I have received for my knitting,” he points out, happily, “it is going to the shelf.”

It sounds a bit pretentious, but they have an awards shelf. It is not a big one, but it has some of the awards, mostly humanitarian and sports awards, that they are the proudest of.

He rolls his eyes fondly. “Still, I wouldn’t have picked this up today if I had remembered,” he insists, looking down.

“It’s fine, love,” he says, gently, “I only care about the fact that you like it.”

“I love it,” he says, sincerely, and even though it is not a huge kitchen chair, he carefully sits on the same chair as Henry by sitting astride on his lap. He grins as Henry moves his hands to his lower back. Possibly to hold him from falling off the chair. He appreciates it and the grin that he flashes to him makes his heart flutter.

He pushes a strand of hair away from Henry’s forehead and holds the backrest with one hand and lets the other hand to stay on his neck.

“I’m glad,” he whispers.

“I know it’s just a dumb joke,” Alex says, sighing, “but I don’t want to—make you feel like I’d take this you for granted.”

The way he looks at him is so gentle and he searches something from his gaze. “I feel like this might be about something more than just the sweater,” he says, eventually, as gently.

Alex scrunches his nose. “Maybe.”

Alex knows that they are doing well, hell better than well, they are doing wondrously. He feels as if everyday he falls more in love, and nothing is actually wrong, but that doesn’t mean his fears don’t raise their ugly heads occasionally.

They are both busy, with their duties, and he with his studies and he with his shelter work and writing, and even though their friends and siblings keep teasing that they are basically joint from the hip as they spend a lot of their free time together, but they are still their own people with their own lives, although a lot of it overlaps.

They share each other’s lives, but he doesn’t want to take all of it granted. He remembers that his parents had been in love, once, but they had grown apart and fallen out of love, as they had taken their love for granted.

He knows that he and Henry are incredibly lucky to have the sort of all-consuming and engulfing love and he knows that not all of the people get to experience the same kind of unconditionality, depth and warmth of it. But he also knows that all of the relationships require work, and he is going to be damned if he does not put all of his effort into this. He doesn’t want to repeat the same mistakes he saw in his childhood.

“I don’t feel neglected if that is what you mean,” Henry says, his voice sounding sure and light.

“Good.”

Alex lets his hands wander to the base of his neck and twisst one of the curls of his hair gently around his index finger.

“I feel very—loved and wanted,” he continues, “not that you would have ever made me feel otherwise.”

“Even better,” Alex breathes out as he presses kisses along his jawline.

“In more ways than just one,” he adds, “and I hope you do, too.”

“Absolutely,” he replies, surely and almost immediately.

There were never any doubts of that in his mind.

That makes him smile one of his most genuine smiles, one of those smiles that are only reserved for him and are completely different from some of the less genuine smiles he puts on for the press.

“Being loved by you feels like a privilege, and I honestly think it might be,” he whispers, and Alex just melts into his touch. He runs his hands along his spine and looks thoughtful for a moment. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Does this,” he says, letting go of Alex with one hand to gesture the tiny space between them, “feel the same as it did in the beginning?”

His voice is soft and quiet, and his question is definitely earnest, even though it is a bit peculiar. Alex has to consider the answer for a moment, even though he has never been more in love.

“No.”

“Oh.”

When they first started their friends with benefits arrangement, it was like a lightning colliding with a hurricane. It was all messy, passionate, electrifying and dizzying. All-consuming lust and want was thrilling and definitely strong as a force of nature and definitely knocked them out of their axis.

It was great, but what they have now, is different, but better. All of that is still there and their love still feels like a force of nature, but it is more stable, secure and stronger. It is more familiar. He feels as if he had all of the universe in his arms as he holds Henry.

“It feels even better,” he whispers, as he leans in, close enough to almost touch his lips with his own. “The thrill—it’s still there and I still feel like I could forget everything, my name and other unimportant details when you kiss me.” He leans slightly away, and runs his thumb along Henry’s jawline. “But it feels so different with love. Knowing that you know me from head to toe, and still want me---. It hits differently.”

Henry swallows. “I know the feeling,” he admits softly. “It does feel more meaningful now, and definitely better, even though it was never bad to begin with.”

All, even the smallest things, feel like declarations and acts of love. The way he rests his hands on his lower back, holding him up. The way he looks at him and the way he touches his face. It is all so full of adoration and love.

All of it is meant to say tiny _I love yous_.

“We should go away for a weekend sometime soon,” Alex suggests, and looking into his eyes, and even though he has probably stared into his eyes countless times before, he still feels some sort of wonder.

“That would be great.”

He hums softly and nods. 

“Paris?”

“Sounds good to me,” Alex agrees, feeling particularly sentimental, “keeping the flame alive and all of that.”

Henry sputters a small laugh. “Alive? I still feel like this might set me on fire,” he says under his breath and burrows his face into his neck.

“Okay, fair point. Maybe it is more like a giant, active, bonfire,” he chuckles.

Henry grins and plants a kiss on the corner of his mouth. “I think we are doing something right then, love.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, “let’s keep growing the damn bonfire then.”

Henry nods and kisses his neck but shifts a little uncomfortably under him. “I cannot feel my legs.”

He kisses his forehead. “That sounds like your problem,” he deadpans, but gets up quite quickly. Henry stands up too, but his movements do look a bit stiff. “We should buy tete-a-tete for these types of discussion, would save your thighs.”

Henry chuckles. “Sure, or next time I just sit on you.”

***

Alex texts him a picture of a world-record shattering, almost 50 metres tall, Norwegian midsummer bonfire a few days later with the caption _I think ours is bigger_. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not as vague as some of the others, but I had a blast writing this and I hope you liked it too!


	21. Present

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 21!

Christmas day, 2023

Alex wakes up slowly as the rays of sunshine hit his face. He feels drowsy still, but he feels serene and as he blinks the sleep away from his eyes, he notices that Henry is already awake, and looking at him, with a mixture of softness and amusement.

“How long have you been awake staring at me?” Alex asks, with a yawn and rubs his own face with his hands to feel a bit more alert.

“Not long,” he says, and pushes one of his curls away from his face. His movement is gentle, and his fingertips stay on his cheek and he lets them to run along his jawline. “Merry Christmas, love.”

“Merry Christmas,” he replies, with a smile forming on his face. He reaches to kiss him. It is sweet and tender, and his lips are warm and soft, and soon the one kiss turns into several ones, and he loses the track of time, and he doesn’t really care about anything else except the warmth and weight of his body on his own.

Henry’s grin is brilliant, and he lets his hand drop from his face to his shoulder. He looks slightly tired, but still content. It might be the sunlight playing tricks on his eyes, but Alex is almost convinced that he is radiating of happiness, and that realisation makes his stomach tingle.

“I have something for you,” he says, and almost immediately he pushes the duvet away and manages to stand up and reach for something from his drawer. He returns to bed quickly and hands him a meticulously wrapped gift.

The wrapping paper is golden, and it keeps reflecting light. It is shiny and it has silver star patterns all over it, and he has wrapped a white string over it. Alex takes it holds it carefully.

“I thought we agreed to exchange gifts when we get to Washington,” Alex says, almost lazily and huffs delightedly, still.

They are still in their brownstone in New York, but they are meant to drive down to Washington to have the Christmas dinner with Alex’s entire extended family. It will be loud and messy, but honestly, Alex loves it, and he is actually looking forward to it.

“I know,” he says, “but I wanted to give that when we were alone,” he says, in a hushed tone, but Alex can hear that a certain edge of anticipation and nervousness hums deep in him.

“Okay,” he chuckles, and sits up so that he can open the gift.

It is a rectangle shaped and it has sharp edges. It feels hard on both sides and it doesn’t weigh much, and it is not really hard to deduce what his literature nerd boyfriend has chosen as his present.

He feels his gaze on him as carefully removes the string and the wrapping paper. It is, unsurprisingly a book, and he glances at the white back cover that is filled with text. The font is small, and his eyes are still too sleepy to actually see the text, especially without his glasses, but he still glances it through.

He turns it around, and unhelpfully, his first thought is that the cover doesn’t look familiar. Only a few seconds later he spots Henry’s name, complete with all three of his last names, in the bottom edge of the cover.

His eyes immediately shoot up to him, and Alex cannot help but mirror his excited grin. “It got out of print?” He asks, gleefully.

“They are trying out different covers, but that one is the very first copy they printed,” he explains, and points at the book resting in his hands.

He feels exhilarated, but he manages to actually look at the cover. It is not as bright white as the back cover, but creamier white and it seems to be a picture of some sort art museum with a few shining marble statues.

It is sort of beautiful and peaceful, and it reminds him of Victoria and Albert museum back in London.

“I wanted you to have it,” he continues, with a warmest half-smile he has ever witnessed.

It only then hits him that he is holding the first copy of _his_ book. He has read countless paragraphs of it, countless times. He has read the first draft and scribbled his thoughts in the marginals. He has read the version that was supposed to be the final draft and adored it. He has read the actual final draft and loved it.

It is a collection of short stories about queer love, some of them are historical and some of them are contemporary, but all of them are wondrous and written in his own and unique poetic way of writing.

He knows the book he is holding, and it means the world to him that he has trusted him enough to let him witness the creation of it, all the stages of it, and that he got to read it so many times and that now he gets the privilege of owning the first printed copy of it.

It feels like a receiving a part of him, his mind and heart.

His heart is overflowing with love and he cannot help but run his fingers along the matte cover. He bites his lower lip and looks at him. “Thank you. This might be the best gift I’ve ever gotten.”

Henry’s smile is delighted and pleased. He seems to blush a little and runs his hand through his hair and grins at him. “You might want to read the dedication page before you say that.”

The curiosity in him is awakened immediately and he browses through the book until he lands to the dedication page.

_For Alex,_

_our love is far too great to put in words,  
all of them pale in comparison_

He blinks furiously as he stares at the few lines in front of him. He is convinced he can hear and feel his own heartbeat, and he possibly cannot do anything else except stare at those words that keep drilling into his heart.

He carefully traces them with his index finger, almost fearing that the page would disappear when he touches it. Instead, it feels smooth underneath his fingertip.

“If you don’t like it, it can be changed--,” Henry hurries to say, apparently taking his stunned silence in the wrong way.

“Are you kidding?” He asks, with a laugh that turns almost sound like a sob, and he wipes away a tear that threatens to escape from the corner of his eye. “It’s perfect.”

Henry sighs out of relief, but the sigh turns into laughter. “I’m glad you like it.”

“Like feels a bit too weak word to describe what I’m feeling,” he says, and gently places the book next to him on the duvet.

He grabs a handful of the fabric of Henry’s t-shirt and pulls him in for a kiss. It is not as slow and peaceful as before, but more intense and heated. His hands immediately finds its way to the space between his shoulder blades and strokes it. Alex’s hand is in his neck and he pours all of his love into the kiss because he feels that his heart might burst if he doesn’t find an outlet for all of his feelings.

“I take it back,” Alex says, little breathlessly when he pulls away, “that this might be the best gift. It no longer might be, it definitely is.”

It makes him laugh, and his laughter sounds so genuine and free. “I think my best Christmas present is that I get to be here, now with you.”

Alex burrows his head into his neck. His scent fills his senses. “Stop, my poor heart cannot take it any longer,” he groans.

“I merely wanted to thank you, some way,” he says, but Alex can hear that he is smiling, “you helped me so much when I wrote it, especially when I wanted to delete the whole thing and throw my laptop into the bin.”

“I have always known that it and you are amazing,” he points out, looking at him, “and even if you would have just written _for Alex_ I’d have swooned, but you had to play dirty and use my two weaknesses against me, you and love poetry,” he jokes.

“It felt only appropriate,” he says, but his smile is brilliant, “and it is how I feel.”

Alex bites his lower lip again. “I have a bunch of love letters that argue differently.”

He chuckles. “Just because I know that any word in the world is not accurate enough to describe this, it doesn’t mean I won’t try at least.”

He kisses his forehead and as soon as he opens his mouth, their alarm clock starts blaring. Henry reaches to silence it.

Even if he looks forward to seeing his relatives, he is sort of tempted to just stay in bed for the whole day. “Since you started giving gifts and romanced the shit out of me before nine in the morning, I guess it’s only fair if I make you Christmas breakfast.”

“Oh no, my grand scheme is revealed,” he deadpans, but reaches to kiss him before he gets out of bed.

Alex stays behind, just for a couple seconds, because he is overwhelmed from the clarity and force of his next thought, how much he wants to marry him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was one of my favourites to write and I hope you like it too!


	22. Christmas tree

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 22!

A couple of days before Christmas, 2021

Alex groans a little as he changes position on the couch. His muscles ache and he has a throbbing headache. He shivers despite the thick blanket that he has wrapped around himself.

It is just his luck to come down with the flu as soon as his holidays started. He swears his nose became blocked the moment he submitted his last essay a couple of days earlier and now he is just truly exhausted and quite possibly feverish.

He feels miserable and his holiday spirit is somewhere far away, but it is a consolation that Henry is there with him, and he had promised to take care of him, even though Alex would understand if he rather did anything else.

Alex looks at him. He is sitting on the other end of the couch, reading a thick book, carefully turning the pages, and Alex’s feet are on his lap. He gently nudges his thigh with his toes. “We should decorate the tree,” he says, but his voice sounds a lot hoarser than he expected.

Henry puts the book down, and glances at him. “You’re ill, you were barely able to walk to the living room,” he points out gently.

“Okay, fair point, but it is almost Christmas,” he argues, a little flatly, “the tree looks just pathetic without any ornaments.”

He did require his help with getting out of the bed and crossing the short distance between the rooms, but the tree is not beautiful to begin with. It is asymmetrical and the branches are uneven in thickness and the colour is weirdly bright green. It looks simply ridiculous in the corner of their living room.

“You’re not going anywhere near the tree because I don’t want to explain your parents why you collapsed into the Christmas tree and I’d rather wish that the tree doesn’t end up flat like the wedding cake,” Henry says, and a smile dances on his lips.

“Ha, real funny,” Alex croaks out, and sneezes right afterwards.

He feels awful. He just wants to curl up and forget how horrible he feels.

“How are you feeling?” He asks, with a lot softer tone than before, and places his palm on his forehead. Alex is sure he can feel the sweat and clamminess of his skin.

“Uh, tired and cold,” he says, weakly, half against the pillow that has been propped between the armrest and his neck. “Just –not good.”

He looks at him sympathetically. “I will get you some more painkillers and water,” he says, before he disappears into the kitchen. He returns quickly with one pill and a water bottle. He sits on the edge of the couch as he hands them to him.

He swallows the pill and sips some water. “What if you decorate the tree and I just lie here,” he says, feebly.

He has a growing suspicion that Henry might be right that he is in no shape to do decorating, just the thought of getting up and standing exhausts him.

“Are you sure?”

Alex cannot explain why, but something about the undecorated tree bothers him. He doesn’t like to leave things to be and he loathes when things stall, and he cannot do anything about it. The unfinishedness of it is infuriating.

“Yeah,” he says, “I can be here for moral support and admire the view,” he adds, with a lazy smile.

“Sure,” he laughs, and carries the few cardboard boxes from the hallway to the living room. He sits on the floor and starts to untangle the strings of the lights.

He watches him as his long delicate fingers try to unknot a particularly big knot. It defies the laws of physics how the lights can always end up tangled in the box during the rest of the year.

“I’m kinda sorry that you have to do all the work,” Alex says, as Henry stands up again to straighten the strings and the cord of the lights.

He looks up to him from the straightened lights, and grins brilliantly. “It’s fine,” he says, “besides, I’m quite sure you cannot even reach the top of the tree.”

He is already rolling the lights around the tree and fixing certain parts of the string into better position.

Alex snorts. “I’m not _that_ short.”

Henry puts the last bit of the lights to the lower branches and tilts his head to the side as he observes his handiwork. “Sure, but there are two kinds of people. The ones who don’t require a stool to reach the top of the tree and those who do,” he says, amusedly, but his gaze is still on the tree.

“That was one time,” Alex tries to defend himself, “also, I hate you.”

During their first Christmas as a couple, they had been visiting UK, and they had visited a children’s hospital where they had helped the patients to decorate a Christmas tree in the ward’s common room. He couldn’t reach the highest branches, and one of the nurses had brought him a stool. He had stepped onto it and glared at Henry who had been laughing so hard he almost wheezed.

“You love me,” he says, in a light tone, but his expression looks a bit too pleased. He rummages through one of the boxes and puts it aside. “Autocratically I will exclude anything with tinsel on it,” he declares, with a frown as he peaks into the next box.

Alex chuckles, but it sounds rather pathetic. He wraps the blanket tighter around himself and just watches him work. He is wearing a beige fisherman’s sweater, but he has pushed the sleeves up and he can see his forearms. Every time he reaches to the top branches the hem of the shirt lifts and exposes a part of his waist and the small of his back.

He doesn’t exactly mind that he is wearing a pair of black sweatpants that fit him perfectly, and maybe he spends more time shamelessly checking him out, than observing his decoration choices, but he guesses nobody can blame him.

“Looks gorgeous,” he mutters, once again mostly against the pillow as he lies on his side.

“It does look rather good,” he agrees, looking at the tree.

“I meant you,” Alex says with a soft voice, but it still sounds hoarse, “but the tree is acceptable looking, too.”

Henry glances at him, but he cannot bite down the smile.

“What? I did say I was here to admire the view, and I didn’t mean that weird-ass looking spruce,” he says, with a lazy grin.

Henry rolls his eyes fondly and picks one of the boxes up. “I don’t know whether you are getting delirious from the fever or if you are just being you, but either way, we have too many decorations.”

He hands the box to him. “Which ones do you want on the tree?”

The box isn’t very big, but it is still full of tree decorations. Most of them look old, and he recognises a few of them from his childhood and the unfamiliar ones are probably Henry’s.

“Definitely not the fever talking,” he says, picking up a snowflake shaped tinfoil ornament. It is a little rough looking, but June had made it for him when they were both still in kindergarten. He gives it to Henry. “and I would kiss you if I didn’t feel this awful.”

He puts the ornament on the coffee table. “We can do that later.”

He points at him. “I’m counting that as a promise and I will hold on to it,” he says, and his smile is uncontrollable.

“Obviously,” he chuckles, but he already leans in to kiss his forehead. 

He finds an elf that he had once waulked in school’s arts and crafts class. He smiles as he picks it up. It definitely isn’t the prettiest one, but it still delights him that he has managed to keep it all these years. He rummages through the box carefully and finds a wooden angel shaped ornament that his dad had once made.

“What’s your favourite Christmas childhood memory?” He asks abruptly, because he is feeling nostalgic examining the decorations, and he desperately needs a distraction from his aching muscles and blocked nose.

He picks up a red and green ribbon that once was his grandmother’s favourite ornament. He hands the box back to Henry.

Henry fidgets with the edge of the box. “It was when we were all young and we didn’t have to take part in any public events. We got to spend the Christmas morning in our parents’ bed, opening gifts and feeling like an ordinary family,” he says, quietly, but he is smiling at the memory.

“Dad was always thrilled to open the presents that we gave to him. One year I gave him this cup that I had made out of clay in school and he told me how much he loved it, and I remember how happy I was then,” he continues, and Alex doesn’t even realise he has closed his own eyes.

“If you want to sleep, we can finish this later,” he says, gently.

He opens his eyes slowly. “No, this actually helps. Your voice helps,” he clarifies. “Keep talking, please?”

The sharpest edge of the headache is gone, and Alex honestly cannot tell whether it is because of the effect of painkillers or his soothing voice and presence. 

“Of course,” he whispers, and takes his hand into his. He holds it gently as if it was the most precious thing he has ever held and slowly intertwines their fingers. He feels the comforting warmth of his hand.

Alex is aware that Henry keeps talking in hushed tone, telling him more details about his childhood Christmases and he wants to listen to him, but it does not take long until he falls asleep.

***

When he opens his eyes the next time, the living room is already dim, and the only source of light is the Christmas lights on the window and on the tree.

“Hey,” Henry says, quietly, when he notices that he is awake again. He has returned to the other end of the couch. “Are you feeling any better?”

“Partly,” he says, truthfully. He doesn’t feel as cold anymore and he is no longer shivering. His muscles still feel sore and nose blocked, but the headache is mostly gone. “Did you put socks on my feet?” He asks, as he realises that he is wearing a pair of woolly socks.

“I did,” he admits, “you hogged the blankets away from your own feet, you blanket-hogger,” he adds, amusedly.

Alex nudges his thigh again. “Thank you for taking care of me,” he whispers, sincerely.

“My pleasure,” he says, seemingly contently, and Alex follows his gaze to the Christmas tree.

It looks rather pretty now that the lights are on, and Henry has hung different ornaments all over the tree. There are the ones that Alex picked from the box, and his picks too, and a bunch of different coloured balls that are shiny and glittery.

If it was anyone else’s tree, he would probably describe it as messy, but because it is theirs, he still likes it. A lot.

“That turned out pretty,” he says, with a half-smile.

“I guess it did,” he agrees, happily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked this one and once again, thank you so much all for reading this!


	23. Traditions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 23!

December 2024

“Alex?”

He hums as he crouches down to tie his shoelaces.

“I think now would be a great time to contemplate on how much I love you and how much you love me,” Henry says casually, over his shoulder, as he looks out of one of the tall windows of the Buckingham palace. The weather isn’t very festive as it is pouring down rain and he can even barely make anything out of the window.

They are staying in Henry’s old room and, technically, Alex supposes it is still his room. He might live with him in New York now, but he visits UK enough that the palace has kept the room as it was.

He sputters out a laugh as he stands up again. “It cannot possibly be that bad. It’s just a dinner.”

Henry looks grave as he turns around. “It is incredibly long, dull and stuck-up dinner with nobility and I’m quite sure the general objective is that no one is enjoying themselves.”

“It can’t be worse than state dinners, and I’ve survived many of them,” Alex argues back, getting terrible flashbacks of having to sit next to people who don’t speak the same languages as him, for hours on end and the sole communication was vague hand gestures, polite smiles and nodding. “I’m a natural diplomat.”

“I know,” Henry says, but still looks perpetually stressed out. “It is still a good thing to keep in mind during of it all.”

Apparently, the dinner is an annual thing and an old tradition. It is always organised a few weeks before Christmas. Obviously, they do not invite all of the nobility each year, but only a part of them and it is always different people. Henry dreads it because he has to attend every time, but this was the first time Alex was invited, too.

Alex is convinced this is all part of some elaborate scheme orchestrated by queen Mary. She is probably determined to make him suffer for all the trouble he is causing. Or she is trying to scare him off by inviting him to all of the official functions, trying to paint him a nightmare image of what his future will be like if they go through with the wedding.

Unfortunately for her, he knows what he is getting into and he is stubborn as hell.

“You make it sound like it’s a torture chamber,” Alex jokes and tries to straighten up his tuxedo jacket but pressing his hands against the thick fabric isn’t a miracle. It stays a bit wrinkled.

“There might be more similarities than you think.”

Alex cannot genuinely tell if Henry is joking or not. He really hopes that he is and that he is exaggerating at least a bit, or a lot, the horrors of the nobility dinners, but currently, he is more focused on his distress.

“Hey,” he says, softly and more gravely, and touches his arm. “It’s alright. If I didn’t want to be here, I wouldn’t be. I’m not that good at following orders, if you haven’t noticed,” he adds, with a flash of grin.

“It hasn’t really come up,” he jokes, with something that resembles a smile.

“I’m only here because I want to and I love you, and there are very few places I wouldn’t follow you to, and this ain’t one of them,” Alex tells him gently, and kisses his cheek.

His smile is grateful, and he places his own hand on top of his.

“I will remind you of that when they send the invitations next year, too,” he says, deadpan.

Alex hums amusedly, but still, it warms his heart when he mentions next year. The idea of them being in it for the long haul still fills his heart with joy that he cannot even properly describe.

***

Alex shakes hands with more people than he can possibly count. He gets confused with the titles and whom he should call their grace or lordship or ladyship. He shoots absolutely horrified glances at Henry who dares to leave him alone with earls who talk about horse racing and the expenses of owning land.

He gets the chance to talk with Bea for a few moments, which is the best part of the whole dinner, and even Phillip nods at him occasionally, and seems approving, which is just adding to his growing confusion.

At the dinner table, there are too many miniature forks and knives. The food is peculiar and too fancy for his taste. The conversation just drags on, and he is convinced it has lasted for hours, and the dishes just keep coming one after another. He tries to eat his flamed avocado-broccoli soup, but it tastes awful.

His only comfort is that he is seated next to Henry and he looks as if he was suffering, too. Henry occasionally rests his hand on his knee under the table. He brushes his hand with his knuckles whenever he can.

The dinner seems endless, but it eventually comes to an end. The guests take their champagne glasses and continue mingling and the dull conversations, but Henry manages to tactfully escape each and every one of the conversations openers, by making polite excuses, as he slowly steers them towards the doors.

After four and a half hours, they leave apparently early. As soon as the doors close behind them, and they walk away from the hall, Alex leans closer to Henry. “You’re lucky I love you and that you look damn great in a suit,” he whispers.

The halls of the palace have been decorated with shiny Christmas ornaments.

He chuckles. “I told you so,” he says, as he opens the door, letting him pass before him, “so are you going to bail on me next year? Get a conveniently timed stomach flu the night before?”

Henry’s voice is light, and he is clearly joking. He looks considerably happier than during the dinner.

“Oh, no. I’m going to learn all about land owning and horse racing so that I have something sensible to talk about,” he says, cheerily, turning around at one of the landings as they walk up the stairs, “or maybe I counterattack them with American politics.”

Henry stops dead on his tracks, in the middle of the stairs, and Alex stops as soon as he realises, he is not by his side anymore.

He looks over his shoulder, to see him, but Henry is merely just staring at him. “Oh,” he eventually says.

Alex goes back down, merely few stairs, and stops in front of him. The one stair between them actually minimizes the height difference quite effectively. “I’m not gonna let you suffer through that alone ever again,” he says softly.

“Oh,” Henry repeats again, maybe involuntarily, but his eyes are shining with something that looks suspiciously lot like awe.

“Yeah, get used to it. We are a package deal nowadays,” he says with a brilliant grin, because he likes the idea of that a lot, “we are a team, now.”

Henry bites his lower lip and the only reason they do not go tumbling down the stairs when he kisses him is the reason that Alex recognises the face he does sometimes when he gets overwhelmed with the desire to kiss him, and grabs the railing before Henry cups his face with both hands and kisses him.

Alex lets out a soft chuckle, as they rest their foreheads against each other. “I know there is no like concrete help of me standing next to you, nodding solemnly, when one of the earls is going on about how their lands are too dry for turnip farming or some shit like that, but I also cannot let you go through that alone so at least it is shared suffering.”

The corner of his mouth twitches. “That is quite romantic,” he whispers, and there definitely is a hint of sarcasm in his voice, but also it is clear that he is genuinely touched.

“I know.”

“If I hadn’t already proposed, I would do so now,” he says, half-amusedly, but it comes out as if it was a prayer or confession.

Alex laughs and leans against the stairwell railing. “Who says you cannot do it again?”

His heart might skip a few beats just because of the way he keeps looking at him.

“Marry me?” He asks, without missing a beat, and it still fills his heart with so much happiness he is sure it is going to burst. It electrifies his whole body in the best way possible.

Alex puts his left hand up, just to wiggle the ring finger that is already sporting the silver band, “Of course, again.”

Henry chuckles, genuinely and freely, and soon he kisses him again, quickly, this time. He pulls away a little, but his gaze stays on him. “If I could tell fourteen-year-old me, that I’d be proposing to love of my life for _second_ time and in this very staircase, I think teen me would have a stroke.”

He laughs quietly and pushes a strand of his hair away from his forehead. “Teen Alex couldn’t handle the specifics of this moment either, to be fair.”

“It is a peculiar world,” he murmurs, his eyes gleaming.

“It is,” he agrees, but he grins, “and I kinda love it.”  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Christmas eve's eve! There will be a proper proposal chapter too, but as you already know, chronological order is something this mess lacks :D


	24. Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 24! Happy Christmas Eve!

December 2021

Alex had quickly learned that Henry is a big fan of Christmas cards, and honestly, Alex likes the idea of them, too.

It is such a nice way to remind people that they are in their thoughts during the holiday season, especially when most of their loved ones are spread in different parts of the world. Alex thinks they cannot be blamed for going all out with their Christmas cards this year.

They took a picture of them wearing matching Christmas sweaters, with David nested in between them and they had put a small red Christmas hat on his head. Alex loves the picture. They look so happy and carefree in it. Henry has his other hand wrapped around David and Alex is kissing his cheek, and none of them really look at the camera, and it looks like a moment that has been accidently captured by the camera.

Henry had written personalised handwritten messages to each card, and they had sent them in fancy envelopes. They had sent them a week ago, and every time Alex gets a new message on his phone, it is most likely someone sending profuse thank yous for the card.

Therefore, when his phone pings, as he slices carrots in their kitchen, he is not surprised when he finds out that the message is from his mom.

“Mom and Leo thanked for the card,” he says to Henry, who is trying to make potato wedges on their kitchen table. He writes a quick reply to her. “They loved it.”

“I’m glad,” he says, with tiny but delighted smile and continues to cut the potatoes.

Alex smiles at him, too, and puts the phone back down to the kitchen counter and tries to focus on carrots, but his phone pings again. This time it is June, also thanking for the card, but her message says _the cutest damn family portrait I’ve seen in a while, tell Henry and David I said hi_ and a bunch of heart emojis.

He replies to her, almost automatically, but his brain cannot stop going through her message over and over again, and always stumbling on the word family. The realisation is so strong he stops on his tracks and just stares at the bright screen of the phone.

He gets a little stuck in his head, and he absentmindedly puts the knife down.

It takes him a moment to realise what it is that shocked him about the message. It is that they are a family. The three of them. Obviously, he has considered Henry a part of his family, but he has never really thought that the three of them form a small family on their own.

The thought of that sends his mind spiralling, and not in a bad way, necessarily.

He almost startles when he realises that Henry is standing right next to him, and gently touching his forearm. His eyebrows are slightly furrowed. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he says, breathing out. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Henry’s lips twitch. “You have this expression,” he explains, gesturing towards his face, “and you usually only get it when you realise something.”

Alex sighs, a bit defeatedly. He knows he could say that it is nothing and Henry probably wouldn’t push it, but he doesn’t want to do that. It feels unfair, and he wants to talk to him. Besides, he is not entirely convinced that Henry couldn’t figure it out just by looking at him and his demeanour.

“June called our Christmas card a family portrait,” he says, his gaze darts between his phone and his face.

The twitch of lips turns into a warm smile. “I suppose it is, really.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, but he still stares at his phone.

He guesses what really threw him off his rhythm is the realisation that he has his own family, and that they have managed to create it despite against all the odds that are stacked against them, and that Henry chooses him to be his family.

Alex knows that family isn’t about biology, but about love and mutual respect, but still, all of his family members are either related to him or have married someone he is related to. Nobody has outright chosen him and decided that he is worthy of being a part of their family, except him.

Sure, Nora is family, too, despite the lack of marriage and shared dna, but she has chosen all of them to be a part of her family, and all of them have chosen her back. Their family dynamic has never been explicitly just about him.

But the thing with Henry is different. He has no obligations to consider him his family, but he still does, and just the realization of that fills him with awe and wonder. He chooses him just out of pure love, and vice versa. The implication of being a family feels so serious, established and enduring. It feels like a privilege, and he wonders how he ever ended up so lucky.

“We don’t have to use the f word if it makes you uncomfortable,” Henry says, gently, and disrupts his train off thought that got off the tracks ages ago. He runs his fingers along his arm, calmly and soothingly. “It can be just a picture of us and David. No other implications.”

Alex looks up from his phone. “No, no. This isn’t about that,” he says quickly, because he doesn’t want him thinking that possibility any longer than he already has. He groans a little out of frustration. “It’s hard to explain.”

His frame seems to lose some of its tension and his eyes are gleaming as he studies him with his gaze. “Try me.”

He exhales deeply and leans against the counter. “I guess that I never properly realised that the two of us, and David, form our own family too, and that other people perceive it as such, too.”

He keeps his gaze on him and nods.

“And it was a good realisation, and I really like the idea of that” he hurries to add, “but it also made me realise that you and David have chosen me to be a part of your family without any obligations, and deemed me, out of everyone, to be worthy of all of that, and that all of it is just because we love each other that much. “

Alex smiles wistfully and shakes his head. “Realising all of that at once made me stop.”

“That makes sense,” Henry says, eventually, but a faint smirk appears on his lips. “But I have a couple of things I want to add.”

He wraps his hands around his waist. “First of all, there is no one else I’d want to start a family with. How could I possibly want anyone else on this planet when I could have you?”

His voice is soft, but the certainty shines through. Alex leans closer to him and into his touch. “It’s a mutual feeling, so I sort of get that, babe.”

It is impossible to even think that he could feel anything for anyone else, that would even come close to what he feels for him.

“Good,” he says, “and I’m quite convinced that David loves you almost as much as I love you.” He grins. “And if he hadn’t liked you, that would have been a deal breaker.”

“Obviously,” he replies. “For some reason, a proverb about the dog resembling their owner comes to mind,” he teases.

“He’s smart. He knows who is worthy of his love,” he adds, trying to bite down his smile, but he fails spectacularly.

Alex just looks at him, and he wonders how one person can be so many things simultaneously. A family and a home.

“So, we are a family,” he says, quietly.

“We are.”

“In that case we can start keeping family meetings. The topic of the first one, certain four-legged member of the family stealing all of my socks,” he adds, deadpan, but the amount of his missing socks is seriously becoming alarming.

Henry laughs and kisses his forehead. “Good luck trying to get him to listen. I’ve already abandoned all hope. He has definitely learned all of his stubbornness from you.”

He laughs too, and his heart is just so full of joy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was frustratingly difficult to write, and it ended up a little messy, butthe idea of found-family is my weakness.


	25. Feast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 25! Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it!

Christmas day, 2023

Alex leans back on his chair, and quietly observes everyone around him. The Christmas dinner is already on full swing, and they are already finishing up their desserts, three different types of cakes made by his abuelita.

Almost all of his extended family from his dad’s side is cramped up in his grandaunt’s apartment in DC, and all around the table is his cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and obviously his dad and June are there, too. She lives in an old apartment building and her apartment is big, but it definitely does not feel that way when it is full of people.

Having nearly twenty people around one long table causes a lot of noise and there are so many different discussions happening around him, and he cannot really focus on any of them. He feels a little sleepy and dazed just by the amount of food he has eaten today.

He picks up different phrases and words from different people’s speaking, but he cannot really figure out what they are talking about, and he has always preferred staying back when it comes to massive family dinners. Obviously, he loves all of them, but the loudness is deafening and eventually, it will always end up in some sort of argument, usually about some small thing or bottled frustration that keeps coming up again.

Instead of actively trying to partake in any discussions, he rests his eyes on Henry who is seated across him on the other side of the table. He is deep in conversation with June and their aunt. He is wearing a dark green sweater with snowflake patterns on it, and he is almost wearing a matching one, his is just dark red.

He waves his hands as he talks and he seems to be enjoying the conversation, and some of his curls have fallen on his forehead, but he doesn’t seem to mind. Alex finds it so endearing how well Henry fits in with his family.

He has charmed absolutely everyone. He plays with his younger cousins, listens to his grandparents’ stories he has already heard before, and swaps baking recipes and book recommendations with his aunts and uncles, and brings Christmas gifts to his kid cousins and everybody’s dogs.

Everyone adores him, and Alex really cannot blame them. It fills his heart with such happiness to see how well they have taken him as one of their own, and Henry is incredibly easy to like and he can be extremely charming when he wants to be.

The first time he had dragged him over to relatives’ place for Christmas, he had been a little reserved, as always with new people. But none of them had treated him any differently, and everyone had been thrilled to meet him, not because he is a royalty, but because they had wanted to meet Alex’s boyfriend.

Henry is listening to something that June is saying, but he notices his gaze, and looks at him instead of her. He smiles at him, so softly, and Alex cannot help but smile back at him, and all the noise around him seems to quiet down a little as he holds his gaze.

“I think it’s Alex’s turn to do the dishes,” his grandaunt announces suddenly, because it is a tradition that the cousins take care of the dishes when the adults have done the cooking. Nowadays, almost all of the cousins are adults themselves and some of them are way too young to be dealing with the heavy plates and delicate glasses, but the tradition has stuck around.

June and a bunch of their cousins had dealt with the lunch dishes and the actual dinner dishes, so the dessert ones have been left for him.

“Sure,” Alex says, and stands up. He starts to gather the small plates, wine glasses and coffee cups and endless number of teaspoons away from the table. As soon as he stands up, Henry is also on his feet and starts to gather the dishes away from his side of the table.

Alex shoots him a grateful smile.

“Hey, that’s unfair,” one of his cousins, Ella, who is about five years younger than him, exclaims. “We had to do ours alone, it’s not fair that you get help.”

Henry is already carrying a high pile of plates to the nearby kitchen, but Alex can hear how he laughs. Alex grins at Ella, and nods towards the kitchen. “Maybe your paramount criteria for a significant other should be whether they are considerate enough to help you with the dishes without asking,” he jokes, as he gathers rest of the spoons away from the table.

She glares at him, but she eventually breaks into some sort of wistful smile. “That seems to be working well enough for you.”

“It is,” he agrees, contently, before picking up the rest of the plates. Henry comes back to the table to pick up more dishes, and they walk back to kitchen together.

The kitchen is not that big, but it is a separate room, and it is about as much privacy they have gotten since they arrived. As soon as they had arrived in the city, they had dropped David off to his mom, and driven straight to his grandaunt’s place.

They dump the dishes to the sink, that is already overflowing with the cake-stained dishes and leave them there.

Alex hops on the kitchen counter, and pulls him closer to him, and loosely wraps his legs around him. He immediately kisses him, but it is challenging as they keep smiling and Henry keeps laughing.

“I knew there was some reason you kept me around,” he says, amusedly, in between the kisses, “I didn’t expect it to be my superior dishwashing abilities.”

“It’s a valid reason,” he says, and keeps chuckling into his mouth. “But I can come up with a few other, equally valid reasons.”

“Is that so?” He whispers, but Alex doesn’t get a real chance to answer, because his lips are already on his, and this kiss is more eager and wanting than the previous ones. He pulls him a little closer and he can feel Henry’s hand moving on his hair, apparently to shelter the back of his skull from the handle of the cupboard behind his head.

His heart is definitely skipping a beat or two because of the kiss. He tastes like a combination of the bitterness of the wine and sweetness of the cake. 

Kissing away from everyone’s glances reminds him so much of the beginning of their relationship, when they took the advantage of any room with walls and a door that could be closed. He is a little more than glad that it has not changed.

Henry eventually pulls away, but he rests his head against his forehead. “One of your little cousins asked me if I’m a Diaz. Either she is very confused who is related to whom or--,”

“—she thinks you’re family,” Alex says softly, finishing his sentence. “They all think so, and you are.”

He kisses the corner of his mouth, quickly. “I’m glad and honoured,” he eventually, whispers, “I like to think that they are mine, too.”

Alex rubs his arm. “They are.”

His face softens and he strokes the base of his skull with his thumb. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” he replies effortlessly, and flashes him a radiant grin. “Also, it is way too late to even attempt escaping now. My mum is still invited every year, even though they got divorced years ago, and hell, Leo gets invited too.”

His mum hadn’t made it this Christmas. Celebrating any holidays, especially Christmas, was always a logistical nightmare for divorce kids, but the fact that the other parent is simultaneously a head of a state has made the scheduling an absolute clusterfuck. Alex has gotten used to it, but it still pains him a little that he doesn’t have all of his family under one roof, but he knows that it might be for the best, and they had managed to agree that they will spend the boxing day together in the White House.

“The invitation seems to be non-returnable item, then,” he remarks lightly.

“Definitely,” he agrees, “and it is pretty much impossible to get rid of me now,” he adds, with a crooked smirk.

“That doesn’t sound half that bad,” he replies, with a similar grin, “and not that it would be my plan, either.”

“Good.”

He searches for something in his eyes, regret or sadness maybe, because being in DC, means that he had to abandon his own family during Christmas, so that he could get the chance to spend it with his family.

The fact that they have to divide their time between his dad’s and mom’s sides of the family and Henry’s family sometimes makes him want to scream because more people and more head of states involved in the scheduling does raise his stress levels, but also, he likes that they have so many loved ones to spend the holidays with, and they had quickly decided that they would spend every other Christmas in London.

This year just happens to be the one when they stay in America.

“Do you miss your family?” He blurts out, and as soon as the words leave his mouth, he realises how bad it sounds.

“Yes.”

“Sorry, stupid question,” he mutters, and cups his face with one hand. He brushes the sharp edge of his cheekbone with his thumb. His heart breaks for him a little.

He shakes his head. “It’s fine,” he reassures, and turns his head slightly to kiss the palm of his hand. “I love that I get to be with you,” he whispers, simply, and his voice sounds to be thick with emotion. “And I wouldn’t change that, and it’s fun to be here, but I do miss all of them. Terribly.”

He drank a couple of glasses of wine during the dinner, but his mind is still clear enough to do some calculations about time zones. He presses a kiss to his forehead. “Of course. And it means the world to me that you’re here with me, too,” he says, gently.

His half-smile is enamoured. “And I don’t have to miss all of my family because you’re here,” he continues.

A wave of warmth crashes into the shore in his chest. “That’s something, at least,” he agrees.

“It is a bit more than something. We should probably start washing the dishes before someone starts to wonder where we disappeared,” he points out, matter-of-factly, but he doesn’t move anywhere.

“True,” he says, reluctantly, as he hops off from the counter, but he is already fishing his phone out of his pocket and choosing Bea from his contact list. “But priorities,” he says, and he opens one of the cupboards so that he can put the phone on the edge of the middle shelf, so that they can talk via videocall while doing the dishes.

He knows that Henry’s happiness was genuine before too, but now he seems even happier and relaxed than before, as he sees all of his family on the bright screen of his phone. Alex loves seeing them too, and getting the possibility to spend a moment with them feels great, and Henry keeps nudging him gently, but gratefully, as he dries the dishes Alex has washed, and he is genuinely happy to share that moment with him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is once again so vague way to fill the prompt, but I still hope you like it and that you have had a nice day!


	26. Glitter and Gold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 26!

27th of December, 2023

Alex licks the remaining ice cream off his spoon and hands the ice cream pint back to Henry. He is sitting right next to him, on the floor, and their shoulders and legs are pressed together as they lean against their couch.

He has no idea why they are sitting on the floor, but he doesn’t really mind. The living room carpet is soft and fuzzy underneath his thighs and the Christmas lights are twinkling on the windows, and the tv on the other side of the living room is illuminating the dim room with various colours.

Henry takes a spoonful of the ice cream and wordlessly gives it back to Alex.

Alex accepts it gladly and takes a bigger spoonful than before. The odd side of effect of cohabiting the same space and being in love is that they have started to pick up each other’s mannerisms and habits. He would like to state for the record, that his way of coping with sleepless nights did not use to be eating ice cream, that is entirely Henry’s doing.

One day he caught Henry frowning at his laptop, and something about the frown had struck him as so familiar, and it had taken him a few seconds to realise that it is so similar to certain frown he makes when he is frustrated at something, and the realisation had completely thrown him off the loop.

To his absolute pure horror, he has started to use words and phrases that are very British and every time, he uses them, it always shocks him how naturally and easily they roll of his tongue. Vice versa, some American sayings have made their way to Henry’s speech and Alex always finds it hilarious.

There are countless minor details about their everyday lives that they mirror and adapt from each other, and while it is usually simply hilarious, he also likes the idea of that. That they love each other so much that they have started to pick little pieces of each other and emerging them into themselves.

Creating perhaps a more complete version of themselves. Maybe that is what soulmates sort of are, he muses, as the ice cream melts on his tongue. Seeing enough good in another person, and being compatible enough, to pick up and take certain parts of them as their own. 

It is also incredibly endearing.

Henry is now holding the carboard pint, and he stares at the tv that displays the reruns of _Survivor_. It’s closer to one o’clock in the night, and the selection of watchable programs is not that wide, especially during the days in between Christmas and New Year’s.

Alex loves those four days, because there are no obligations and nobody expects anything from him, and he can just decide what he is going to do and when. There is such freedom in those days.

He can hear a series of muffled ping sounds from a phone. He checks his own, but it is not the one making the noise. He takes the pint away from him. “It’s yours,” he says, scooping some more ice cream into his spoon.

Henry groans quietly. He seems reluctant to move or make any efforts to do so, and honestly, he understands. They had arrived back to New York around nine, and he is exhausted, too. The drive hadn’t been that long, but Christmas celebrations always make him tired, and Henry seems to be even more exhausted than he is.

“Where is it?” He asks, placing the almost empty pint on the floor.

He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment. “In my coat pocket, possibly.”

Alex hums as he gets up from the floor and heads towards the coat rack in their hallway. He absentmindedly shoves his hand into the first pocket he sees, and he is a little startled when his fingertips don’t touch the screen of the phone, but something smooth and velvety instead.

He instinctively wraps his fingers around it and pulls it out to examine it closer. He stares perplexedly at a black small box that rests on his palm. It is definitely a ring box, there is no doubt about it, but he still just blinks slowly and stares at it, little helplessly.

The first coherent thought that his brain provides is _I didn’t leave it there._ Quickly, he realises that it might be a completely different box, and in that moment, he hears Henry’s hurried footsteps against the wooden floor.

He turns around and finds completely bewildered looking Henry standing in the doorway of the hallway. His eyes dart between the box and him.

All of the sleepiness is gone from his eyes, and he looks alert. Alex knows he has to give the box back. It is not his, not yet, but he feels almost frozen and the time seems to drag on. He wraps his fingers around it again.

“Catch,” he suggests, a little unsurely, and tosses the ring box at Henry. He catches it, with both hands, but still gracefully, as Alex walks back to the living room. Absentmindedly, he opens one of the drawers underneath the tv, the ones that are mostly filled with his coursework papers, and he picks up what he wanted, and he doesn’t even need to look, because he knows exactly where he left it. He shoves it to the pocket of his sweatpants and closes the drawer.

He settles back into the same spot he sat before.

He stuffs his mouth with the ice cream, and the sweetness of the vanilla and cookie dough is almost overwhelming. Henry sighs softly, but he sits next to him and glances up to the tv, where someone is swimming as fast as she can in a bright turquoise sea.

“Uh, that certainly takes the edge of surprise away,” he eventually breathes out, but his voice is light.

He had no idea he had bought a ring. That certainly was a surprise, but he had known that he would propose someday. He didn’t know it was in his immediate plans, but they have been talking about marriage for a while now, and he had known from the moment when he swore to his mom that he feels forever about him, that it happening was always a very real possibility.

More and more frequently, he has thought about a proposal, but somehow seeing the ring box made everything more tangible and real. To know that he wants it as much as he does feel a little unreal and humbling.

“Sorry,” he murmurs, and leans into him. He rests his head against his shoulder and keeps eating the ice cream.

“It’s not your fault, in any way,” he reassures him, and he rests his head against his. “I completely forgot it was there.”

He lets out a breathless laugh. “I hope I didn’t ruin your plans too much.”

He says it, because he has spent countless hours thinking what the best place and time would be to ask the question, and it has been more difficult than he would have imagined. He has no detailed plans ready, but he knows Henry has been always more organised while he does things more impulsively.

Still, he knows that the discovery of the ring box was a group effort, this time.

Henry kisses his temple. “You have never ruined anything,” he whispers, softly.

“Arguably very not true,” he replies, with a flash of brilliant grin, “but I appreciate it.”

He can already see the bottom of the pint and he offers the last spoonful of half-melted ice cream to him. He accepts it with a half-smile, as Alex gets up again. “I’m going to throw this away,” he says, before he disappears to the kitchen.

The whole thing seems still a little surreal to him, and it might be just the sleep deprivation, but he knows they will be okay. His mind keeps coming back to the uncertainty and unpredictability of what will happen next. It is almost like a race of who will make the move first. He tries his best to fight against the urge of just proposing him right away, but it is such a tempting option.

Alex also comes to the conclusion that if nobody isgoing to ask the question tonight, they will never get around to do it. Not that it would be something they would love to procrastinate, but because they are perfectionists, competitive and they both think that the other deserves nothing less than the world and the perfect moment does not exist.

He opens the cupboard below the sink where their trash cans are located and throws the pint there. When he turns around, Henry has appeared to the kitchen, and he is already on one knee in front of him.

It took him a few seconds to even realise that he is even there, but when he does, he chuckles. “You waited long,” he jokes, but his heart is soaring about the fact that they had a similar urge, and that he failed to resist it.

He also feels a very slight pang of disappointment that he beat him to it, especially when he had just thought about it.

“Shut up,” he says, but there is no real heat behind his voice, “I had different plans, and I’ve been carrying this ring around, just in case a perfect moment would present itself, and I never thought that moment would be in front of an open bin.”

Alex pushes the door close. “Better?” He asks, deadpan, but he feels a little giddy.

“A bit yes,” he agrees, wistfully, but his smile just widens as he looks at him.

“This is a pretty good moment,” he remarks, because apparently, he is incapable of shutting hell up, even when he is being proposed to, but it is the truth.

He has spent so much time wondering about the perfect moment, but right now, it feels pretty perfect just because it’s definitely a happy moment, and they are in their own home, the one that they have filled with their own memories and love.

“Believe it or not, I had a speech prepared,” he continues in a gentle tone, “but obviously, I do not have with me right now.”

“How unorganized of you,” he deadpans, but trying not to grin is a futile effort. He sits down and gently brushes his knee with his fingers. “Maybe I’m rubbing off on you.”

“Possibly,” he agrees, and his smile is radiating happiness, “although almost all milestones of us have happened in quite unorganized manner.”

He thinks about the wedding cake disaster, their first kiss and love confessions, the way their relationship had been made public knowledge and the way they ended up living in this brownstone. “You make a very valid point.”

Henry laughs quietly. He shakes the ring box in his hand and gestures to himself with his free hand. “I’m definitely trying to make a point here, but not that particular one.”

“Sorry, go on,” he says, gently and crosses his legs.

He exhales softly. “I love you. I suppose it goes without saying because we are in this moment, but I feel like that is the essence of what I’m trying to say, and I adore saying it, so I love you.”

“I love you, too,” he says before he can stop himself. Saying it back to him feels so natural and it comes so effortlessly that he doesn’t even realise that saying it back to him interrupts his speech again. He grimaces, and it makes him laugh.

“This is off to a good start,” he breathes out, but his voice is full of fondness.

“The best,” he agrees, without an ounce of sarcasm in his voice.

“I’ve studied words,” he starts again, slowly, “and they should be on my side, but with you, I always feel a little speechless, but still, words have played a paramount part how we fell in love. It felt only adapt that I fell in love with you through your words.”

He feels a sudden urge to kiss him, but he doesn’t move, he merely smiles at him.

“It may have started with words, but I fell in love with all of you,” he continues, and his voice is thick with emotion. There are no words that would come even close to what I’m feeling and how it feels to be loved by you. The words still fail me at that.”

Alex’s stomach knots in the best way possible as he listens to him and his soft words.

“You have made my life so much better by crashing into it and making it capsize in a best way possible. You’re incredible, and knowing that you love me despite having seen all of me still fills me with pure wonder, and I don’t know what I have done to deserve to be this lucky and happy, as you have made me.”

A soft laughter escapes from Alex’s throat, even though his eyes sting. He wonders whether it is possible to cry and laugh at the same time.

He swallows as if the words were stuck in his throat. Alex places his hand on the knee that’s not against the floor. “I know I want to spend rest of my days on this earth with you, and I want to promise to you with this ring to try and make you as happy as you’ve made me, and I’ll do it so gladly, if you allow me to. It would be my greatest honour to call you my husband one day.”

There are definitely tears in his eyes, and his heart feels like it could burst out of happiness at any given moment.

He glances at the box but realises that he hasn’t still opened it yet. He quickly opens it, and Alex can see a delicate looking, shiny, silver ring resting on the cushion of the box. “Will you marry me?”

“Yes, of course,” he whispers, without missing a beat.

Henry’s face lights up like a sunrise’s first beams, suddenly and brightly. He carefully picks up the ring from the box and Alex allows him to slide it on his left ring finger. It fits his finger perfectly, as if it was always supposed to be there. The inside of the ring feels a little uneven against the skin of his finger, and he suspects that there might be an engraving.

The outside of the ring has two thin lines going up and down, and intersecting each other regularly, and it is hard to tell where one line begins and other ends. They are inevitably intertwined, and somehow it reminds him of them.

Before he has a chance to say anything, he is already pulling him into a kiss. All he knows that their first kiss as an engaged couple is a disaster. He is still smiling widely, and Henry keeps laughing into his mouth, so it does not even resemble a kiss, it’s more like their faces are just pressed together.

Still, neither of them are willing to give up and once the laughter dies down a little, the kisses turn into softer and sweeter, but before it turns into anything else, Alex pulls away. He smirks at him.

He pulls another ring box from his sweatpants pocket. He gets on one knee, too. “Two can play this game,” he says, amusedly.

Henry looks hilariously perplexed as his gaze darts between his face and the cobalt blue ring box. “What? You only beat me to it by minutes, I get to do this, too.”

His face softens a little more, and he noticed a few tears falling down on his cheeks already when he carefully slid the ring on his finger, but more are forming in his eyes, just as he looks at him. “Sure, love.”

“I guess great minds think alike,” he attempts to joke, but his voice is heavy with emotion, too. “I haven’t been carrying the ring with me, but I have spent weeks trying to come up with the way to ask it.”

He shakes his head a little in disbelief, because if he is being honest, this isn’t one of the scenarios he considered. Kitchen floor in the middle of the night did not make into top five of his plans, but it feels right. One of his curls falls on his face, and Henry is quickly pushing it away, and he flashes him a grateful smile.

“I love you,” he says, softly, “and I know I just said it, but it is worth repeating. I mean it every time as much as I meant it when I first said it to you, and I hope I get to keep telling it to you for a very long time.”

He keeps a small pause to exhale. Henry holds his gaze, and that surprisingly grounds him, and gives him the gentle nudge to continue. “You said you’re lucky, but so am I. And maybe we are both lucky that we found each other and managed to defy all the circumstances to end up here. You make me happy in so many ways, in ways that I didn’t even know that existed, and it would be my absolute privilege to make you feel the same way,” he admits.

He pops the box open. “Marry me?” He asks, with a chuckle that he cannot hold back anymore, but his voice is still sincere.

“I guess it is only fair since you are marrying me,” he says, with a half-smile, “and of course I will.”

The ring he picked for him is golden, and only slightly thicker than his. It shines underneath the light of the kitchen lamp. It has patterns too, delicate looking stars that are composed only of simple lines that cross in the middle. It is discreet but beautiful.

He had wanted to choose it as soon as he saw it, because it reminded him so much of Henry. The stars reminded him of his own north star reference.

“You’re like the only person for whom I can consider changing my opinion on how dumb royal weddings are,” he adds, with a lopsided grin.

“I’m flattered, truly,” he muses.

He tentatively takes the other ring from the box and gently takes Henry’s hand in his. He looks up to him, staring at him, as if asking for a permission.

He nods, just once.

He puts the ring on the finger, and he sighs contently, when it is finally on the place where he has wanted to see it for weeks, and he pulls him into tight hug.

He can feel his soft laughter against his skin, and it is contagious, and soon both of them are laughing. They are exhausted and possibly a bit more than delirious with happiness, and the force of the hug makes him lose his balance a little.

He kisses his jawline and soon his lips are against his again. It’s a lot more intense than the earlier kiss, but it is still soft and full of love. He gets off from his knees and not-so-gracefully lies down on the floor and pulls him with him.

Henry is holding his face gently but firmly with both of his hands. He is astride on top of him and their bodies are pressed closely together, with almost crushing force, but Alex doesn’t mind at all.

He has his other hand in his neck and other one in his hair and he has loosely curled a strand of his hair around his index finger. They take sharp breaths in-between and Henry is whispering something, softly, against his lips, and at first Alex thinks it is just senseless babble, but then he hears it. It is soft and rapid _I love yous._

He loses the track of time, and he doesn’t know how long it has been when Henry eventually rolls away to the floor again. His back, at least, feels a little stiff against the floor.

“I’m aware that with –marrying me, there comes a lot of baggage--,” Henry starts as he stares at the ceiling, but Alex is having none of it.

“Stop it,” he says, gently and pokes him in the arm. “I wouldn’t have said yes or asked you if I didn’t want to. And I only know you’re only asking how bothered I will be when people put our faces on collectible teacups and sell them at every corner of London,” he adds, amusedly.

“Among other things, yes,” he says, quietly, but a ghost of a smile appears on his lips.

“I will live with it,” he replies, deadpan, and tries to shrug, but it is a little difficult against the kitchen floor. He nudges him gently with his elbow. “Besides, that was a pretty good speech.”

“Yours was, too. Very convincing.”

His hand finds his and he intertwines their fingers. His hand feels warm against his and he cannot stop smiling, even though his cheeks start to hurt a little, but he is sure that his body cannot contain such a pure happiness without smiling and the stinging cheeks are a small price to pay for what he is feeling. It is impossible not to smile when he feels the weight of the ring on his finger and when Henry keeps looking at him enamouredly.

Neither of them moves, they just lay there, next to each other, and he loves every minute of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was one of my favourite chapters to write because I have a soft spot for proposal fics and I do hope you liked this one!


	27. Cuddling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 27!

December 2021

It’s late in the afternoon as Alex finally manages to reach their brownstone apartment after a long and tedious day at library, trying to cram as much law statistics into his brain as possible for a sleep deprived human in eight hours.

The apartment seems surprisingly quiet, although he can hear distant noises of the tv as he closes the door. Some of the lights are also on, but he cannot see Henry.

Eventually, he spots Henry lying on the sofa, his foot popped up on the coffee table, and buried under a fluffy cobalt blue blanket. He is looking at the tv, but it seems he isn’t truly focusing on it. He just stares at it mindlessly.

David is sleeping next to him, tightly pressed against his leg.

Alex leaves his bag back by the kitchen table before crashing next to him on the sofa. “Hey,” he greets him, as he settles there, hogging some of the blanket on his feet, too.

“Hi,” he says, quietly, and now that Alex is right next to him, he can see that he is still wearing his pyjamas from the morning.

“Everything okay?” He asks, concerned. He didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary in the morning, when he left for the library, but now he seems considerably less okay.

Henry stares at the blanket underneath his hands. “Been better,” he eventually breathes out.

“That sucks,” he says, and it immediately feels horribly inadequate, “bad day?”

“Yes,” he admits, almost immediately, “definitely.”

Alex leans in to kiss his cheek. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

He shifts underneath the blanket and runs his hand through his hair, revealing both his anxiety and frustration. “I’m sorry, too. I know we could have gone—”

“I don’t need apologies,” Alex says, cutting off his attempted apology.

It has been rare lately that both of them would have an evening off, and while they were both on the same continent and city. They hadn’t exactly agreed on anything specific they would do, but rather make vague plans of somethings and maybes. Just being together was the most important thing.

“You could still go somewhere, if you want--,” he starts again, his eyes focused on the tv.

“I know,” he says, more gently than before, “but I’m right where I want to be.”

The sofa is way too soft, and he knows that his lower back will kill him later for slouching on it, and the blanket is too thick and incredibly tedious talk show is on tv, but still, he has Henry nuzzled against his arm, and he doesn’t think he could be happier anywhere else.

He knows exactly what Henry is attempting to do. He has gotten considerably better at showing his emotions and talking about them, but his Achilles’ heel is still sharing his more sombre feelings if he believes they will somehow be a burden or an inconvenience.

He won’t outright push him away anymore, but he discreetly tries to nudge him to do something else or distract him with something wildly different, so that he can suffer alone, as if he could compartmentalize whatever is upsetting him, so that it would not bother Alex.

Alex knows that sometimes he just needs to be alone, and he respects that, but there is a fine line between truly wanting to be alone and plain pushing him away, and he has gotten better at distinguishing the difference.

Henry huffs, but he doesn’t sound annoyed, more defeated.

“I’m not going anywhere, unless you explicitly state you want to be left alone,” he says, and puts his foot on the coffee table, next to Henry’s, and nudges his toes.

Henry studies him with his gaze, and he has pressed his lips together so tightly, they are turning slightly white.

“Do you want me to stay?”

“Yes,” he says, quietly, “please.”

His voice is so sincere and almost pleading, and it kind of breaks Alex’s heart, and there is no way he would deny anything from him when he sounds like that.

He kisses his forehead. “Of course.”

He settles into a better position and lets Henry to lean against him. He rests his head on the space where his neck meets his shoulder, and he can feel his soft breaths against his skin. They remain like that for a moment, and Alex gently runs his hand through his hair. It feels soft and silky beneath his fingers.

“Is this okay?” He murmurs, quietly, and he feels him nodding against his bicep. He doesn’t stop the slow and delicate movements of his fingers.

“Do you need anything else? Tea or food?” He suggests again, quietly, as he breaks the silence that has settled into their living room again.

Alex can admit that he does feel rather helpless, sometimes, when Henry has his off-days. He wants to help him, desperately, and while he knows that most of the time the best he can do is just to be there for him, some part of his brain desperately needs something concrete to do, and so far the best he has managed to come up with is to make a cup of tea or cook for him.

“Not right now, love,” he replies in a feeble voice.

“Okay, that’s fine. We can just stay here,” he says, in a soothing voice, “as long as you want.”

He exhales and it sounds a little shaky. Alex holds him a little tighter. Cuddling with Henry is never a bad option in his book, and he is just glad that he can do something to make him feel a little less alone and show that he is there for him, in any way he needs.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He knows that if Henry truly wanted him to shut up, he would tell him so. He merely wants to offer him the chance to share what is on his mind.

“It’s going to sound stupid,” he says, still in the same quiet tone, but he glances at him.

“Try me,” he dares, “I like stupid things.”

He hopes that Henry genuinely knows that he would never ridicule or belittle anything serious he decides to share with him. That he knows that the trust and safety are always there, no matter what.

But he can understand that the threshold is still high, while knowing all of that, if he has been made feel stupid for feeling too strongly or getting upset about things other people might have undermined. Made him feel stupid for simply having too much emotions and not knowing what do with them.

“Today would have been my father’s birthday,” he says, eventually, after a moment of silence, and the faint sounds of tv almost drown his voice. He stares at the tv instead of him, but he wraps his fingers around his. “I suppose it is still his birthday, in a way. I don’t think death cancels the birthday, even though he is not here, anymore.”

Alex involuntarily sucks in breath, and he stops the movement of his fingers, but he quickly continues. “I didn’t know.”

It actually explains a lot. He knows that all sorts of holidays and big milestones in his or his siblings’ lives are difficult to him, because there is always the sense that someone is missing, and he cannot share all those important moments with him.

The fact that his birthday lines up with the biggest holiday season that keeps underlining the importance of family and spending time with loved ones is not probably helping it either.

“Because I didn’t tell you,” he says, and his voice is a little harsh.

“It’s fine,” he rushes to reassure, gently.

Henry sighs. “I knew the day was coming up and I thought it would not hit me that badly. His birthdays are terrible, but not as horrible as the anniversary of his—death.”

“And I thought I could handle it on my own, and not to dump it on you while you are revising,” he says, almost too casually with a half-shrug, “and I was doing surprisingly fine until I opened tv.”

Alex places his hand on his arm.

“They--- one channel was showing one of his Bond movies. I think it was the most popular one, to honour his birthday,” he says, but his voice sounds weak and tired, “and I don’t generally watch them anymore, because it’s upsetting--.”

He bites the inside of his cheek and stares at the tv. “And I was already upset, but seeing his face and hearing his voice, it hit me harder than I thought. And knowing that is all that’s left of him, that his movies are one of the few ways I can see him or hear him, and even then, he is not --- him, but some character.”

“It was just--- tough, and I couldn’t pull myself together again,” he confesses, while staring at the bundled blanket in their laps.

Alex gently strokes his hand with his thumb. “Okay, multiple things,” he says, and holds up his other thumb, “first of all, that isn’t stupid. It’s so understandable and I’m sorry.”

Henry’s shoulders seem to lose some of his tension underneath his touch. Alex is now also holding up his index finger. “Second of all, don’t ever think that you couldn’t tell me something like that. I know you can handle almost anything on your own, but the point is that you don’t have to. It’ll never be a burden or anything like that. I want to be here for you.”

A sort of smile tugs in the corner of his mouth. “Okay.”

“Yeah, and third of all,” he says, raising the third finger, “baby, you don’t need to pull yourself together immediately, it’s okay to feel very much not okay.”

Henry closes his eyes and nods slightly. “Fourth of all, his filmography isn’t all that is left of him. He lives in you, Bea and Phillip. In all of you and your memories, and that’s more meaningful.”

He never met Arthur, but he has seen a lot of pictures of him, and he can definitely see him in all of them. Bea has her father’s eyes and Phillip has his strong nose. Yet, out of all of them, Henry resembles him the most. He might be a little biased because has arguably spent the most time staring at him, and not his siblings. He has the same facial structure and some of his expressions are strikingly similar.

It looks as if there were tears glistering in his eyes, and surely enough few of them fall down on his cheeks, even though he immediately dries them off.

“Fifth of all,” Alex says, now holding up all of the fingers on his right hand, “I love you. And I know I cannot magically fix the situation or make you feel better, even though I’d like to, but, uh, I hope that maybe it helps that you aren’t alone and that makes the situation a bit less shitty.”

Henry puts his hand on top of Alex’s hand and intertwines their fingers. “You always help, more than you know,” he says, sincerely, as he holds his hand, “and make things less shitty.”

“I’m glad.”

“We could still celebrate his birthday,” Alex blurts out, as he frantically tries to come up with something that could help, “if you want. Bake a cake or make waffles or something.”

Henry looks startled for a moment, and Alex cannot really blame him. He came up with the idea as he said it, but Henry looks as if he was considering it.

“Waffles could be nice,” he eventually breathes out.

“Waffles it is,” he declares, and soon they are both in the kitchen. Henry still has the blanket wrapped around his shoulders, and Alex starts to rummage through their fridge and cupboards for all the ingredients and dishes they need.

Some of the waffles turn out better than others. Some are too soft and lack the proper texture. Some of them are crispy and slightly burnt and they stare at the waffle iron as if it was a magical device they could not control, but the waffles still taste great and he tells him anecdotes of his dad, and it is so incredibly peaceful.

They eat the waffles for dinner like the responsible adults that they are. He is still sombre, his sadness hums deep and underneath, beyond the surface of what he can reach. But at least, he is no longer carrying the burden solely alone.

He is leaning onto him, physically and mentally, as he keeps touching him for most of the time. He holds his hand, brushes their fingers against each other, leaning against him and his frame as they watch the waffle iron and bumping their knees together as they eat.

“Alex?” Henry asks, as he is filling up the dishwasher with their jam and whipped cream-stained plates.

“Yeah?”

“Thank you,” he says, hugging him tightly from behind. He places kisses on his neck, along his spine.

Alex leans into his touch and Henry puts his jaw onto his shoulder slightly clumsily because of the height difference, but it still feels right.

“No need to thank me.”

“Still,” he insists, softly.

Alex huffs amusedly. “You’re welcome.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This collection of ficlets has become officially my longest published fic here, and I want to thank everyone who has taken the time to read these, it means a lot to me <3 This one was slightly more angsty, but there is still a lot of fluff coming up!


	28. Movie night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 28!

Morning of 27th of December, 2023

Alex wakes up as something pokes him in the ribs. He opens his eyes slowly, and the first thing he sees is Henry who flashes him a remorseful smile. “I’m sorry. I did not mean to wake you up.”

“It’s fine,” he slurs, his voice still heavy with sleep, but he does he feel well-rested. Relaxed even. He smiles at him. “Although, I’d prefer a little less elbowing,” he says, without any real heat behind his voice, “I’ll add it to the wedding vows.”

He sputters out a delighted, but short laugh. “Will your vows be in a list form?”

“Possibly,” he deadpans, but it is not actually a bad idea at all.

He already knows that he will spend hours trying to write the vows, trying to perfect them, and he is willing to consider any format. Not that it would be a tedious task, to put it into words how much he adores him.

Henry looks at him amusedly, but fondness shines through. “So,” he says, slightly tapping Alex’s ring finger, “this is a thing that happened.”

“Yeah,” he breathes out, softly. His gaze focuses on the way Henry’s eyes glister, and it looks like it is out of pure happiness and something melts in his chest. “Any regrets?”

He asks it as a joke, mostly. He knows that the way the double proposal went down wasn’t in either one of their plans, but it was still quite perfect. In retrospect, he thinks that their home was the best possible place for it.

It is _theirs_ , and private. So much of their relationship is already world’s, and he likes that was a moment only for them.

“None,” he replies, quickly but determinedly. “Do you have any?”

“I’ve never regretted anything I have done with you,” he says, and kisses his forehead.

“Not even that moment when I literally fell out of the closet when Zahra was interrogating who you were seeing?” He asks, with a brilliant half-grin.

“Not even that,” he replies, pointing him with his index finger. 

Henry exhales softly and picks up his left hand in his. He glances at the shiny ring. “I got stuck in the lift when I was buying that.”

“I thought that shopping bag was Shaan’s,” Alex sputters out and he ends up chuckling. “And you didn’t even have any gift for Bea when you got back.”

“It was not the most discreet plan,” he admits, but his grin widens. “It helps that you are still as thick as it gets.”

Alex pretends to gape at him, but settles for grinning instead. “You are still obtuse fucking--,” he starts but Henry kisses him, hard, and rest of the sentence drowns against his lips.

“I love you,” he whispers softly, mostly against his lips.

“I know, love you, too,” Alex replies quietly and closes his eyes. “I bought yours a bit earlier. Before the cabin trip,” he admits, “so, vindication.”

Henry chuckles mostly against his pillow. He brushes the knuckles of his hand with his thumb. “I didn’t realise that this was a competition.”

“It is not,” he replies, “but you managed to propose first, so let me have this one thing,” he argues, gleefully.

He rolls his eyes, but it ends up only being a gesture of fondness. “Fine.”

They lie there for a moment in silence, just enjoying the presence of each other and taking in the closeness. Then a certain thought gets into his head and he cannot shake it off. His curiosity takes the best of him.

“When did you know that you wanted to--?” He asks, but he lets his voice trail off.

“I’ve wanted for a long time, but the cabin weekend was the last straw. Actually, it was that atrocious snow angel that made it so clear to me. I almost proposed you on the spot, but I wanted to do it properly. But the feeling was so strong I was sure I’d combust if I didn’t do anything about it.”

“That snow angel was a piece of art,” he argues, lazily and amusedly, “and yeah I get that. In front of our trash cans is a lot better than snow covered Canadian forest,” he jokes.

“Shut up--,” Henry starts, but he shuts him up by kissing him again.

“I’m not complaining,” he says against his lips, when he is half-lying on top of him. “It was a wonderful, and I wouldn’t change a thing about it.”

It is the truth and it is important for him that he knows it. Besides, he has no grounds to complain when he proposed him on the same spot.

He feels the warmth of his body against him, and Henry gently touches his left temple with his fingers. “I know. When did you realise?”

“A while ago, honestly,” he tells him. “It was not any big certain revelation to me. But I do remember that I thought about it with clarity when you were rambling about some book you read back when we were in London in the summer. You were so excited about it and I listened to your explanation gladly, even though I had no idea what the book was about, and you smiled at me and the sun shone on your face, and I just realised that was it.”

“Oh,” he says with a long exhale. “I remember that. I had no idea.”

Alex hums. “I almost blurted it out then,” he admits and quickly kisses the corner of his mouth, “but I’m better at keeping secrets.”

“Speaking of secrets,” he says slowly and holds his gaze, “when we should announce it?”

Alex cherishes the fact that this was completely theirs. It was their home, on their terms and about their love, but he also desperately wants to tell his family and friends, but he knows that also comes with the public announcement and while he wants that the whole world knows how much he loves him, but it is still a lot.

Still, knowing that they are the only people in the world who know that they got engaged feels pretty special.

“They are coming over today,” Alex muses, “we could tell then?”

The annual New Year’s Eve party is soon, and they had managed to convince their siblings and Nora and Pez that they should come a couple days earlier to New York so that they could properly spend time together. Miraculously, everyone’s schedules had matched, and they had planned a movie night as soon as they arrived.

“It would be easy,” he agrees, “Nora and June had promised to pick them up from the airport, so they would all arrive at once.”

“Or,” he says, with mischief, “we could not tell them and just wait and see how long it takes them to figure it out.”

Henry’s eyes are bright as he considers. “I’m in. Should we bet on it?”

“I like the way you think,” he says, laughing. “I’m going to say at least half an hour.”

“Less than ten minutes.”

Alex bites his lip. It is a ridiculous thing to bet on, but it’s still fun and he is still glad that they are both competitive and like-minded enough to do it.

“Loser has to come up with a way to tell our press teams that we got engaged,” Alex declares cheerfully, as he gets back to his own side of the bed.

“It’s on,” he laughs dazzlingly.

***

When they all arrive hours later, they are both on the door to hug them and help with their tiny luggage. Alex manages to close the door behind them, and they have moved from their narrow hallway to the living room, and everybody is chatting excitedly and catching up with how their journey went.

Nora sits down on their couch and smirks. “Did you two get engaged?”

It is almost comical how quickly and in unison everybody glances at their hands.

“Fuck,” Alex says under his breath as he realises that he lost the bet by a lot.

Henry’s smile is dazzling as he wraps his hand around his waist. “Victory is mine,” he whispers into his ear, and Alex rolls his eyes, but he lets it slide.

“Hell yeah we did,” he says, and raises his arm. Henry meets it in a high five.

Almost all of them start talk simultaneously, and June rushes to hug both of them, and rest of them follow, and for a moment it is just a blur of congratulations and heartfelt hugs, and Alex feels a little overwhelmed with the amount of love that washes over him.

He blinks his eyes a couple of times to get rid of the tears that threatens to escape from the corners of his eyes. Henry smiles at him knowingly when everyone else is examining their rings.

“Who proposed who?” June asks, when they have all settled down again. Alex is sitting with Henry on an armchair that is probably too small for both of them, but he doesn’t care. He sits on his lap and his legs are dangling over the armrest. He has placed his hand on his lap, and Alex holds it in his.

“I proposed him,” Henry replies.

“And I proposed him,” Alex adds, with a grin.

“Wait, you both proposed?” Pez asks, in disbelief, but a grin is spreading on his face.

“I proposed first,” he adds. He glances at him with a way-too pleased smile. Pez is smiling at him proudly and there is so much affection in the way Bea looks at him.

“That’s so sweet that you both had plans,” Bea pipes in.

“Where did you propose?” Nora asks, as she starts to braid June’s hair. She looks over her shoulder and flashes a tiny smile at her.

“Um, here,” Henry replies, “in the kitchen. Next to the bins.”

“It was very romantic,” Alex agrees with a playful smile that he cannot fight off. “I was completely floored,” he jokes, and Henry laughs against his neck. “We were literally on the floor.”

“It sounds endearing,” June says, and Nora hums as she finishes braiding the tiny braid.

“You look happy. Both of you. It is like you’re glowing,” Nora agrees, softly, “I didn’t even need to see the rings to know something had happened.”

Bea nods next to her.

“It’s true,” Pez agrees, but glances at Henry. “But H, what happened to the plans? I thought you had at least one plan you stuck with?”

Henry bites his lower lip, apparently trying his best not to smile. “I kind of forgot where the ring was and Alex found it, accidently. It felt as good moment as any,” he explains, with a shrug.

“True,” Alex says, and leans in to kiss his forehead, “it was a good moment.”

June groans. “You two are going to be even sappier than before, aren’t you? Quick, somebody choose the movie, I don’t think I can handle watching any more of your love,” she jokes, but her voice is still full of fondness.

Alex just laughs, and just to mess with her, and because he really wants to, he kisses Henry again.

***

It’s late at night and they are back in their bed. Their siblings and friends are sleeping in the guest room and living room, but Alex guesses they haven’t fallen asleep yet either because he can hear soft whispers and laughter.

“Are you ready?”

They both have their Instagram apps open and Alex finger hoovers above the publishing button. Both of them are going to publish an identical picture, a one that Pez took of their hands. The picture is simple, but it definitely showcases both of their rings.

It had been obviously Alex’s idea since he lost the bet. Sure, he knows the sensible thing would be that they would tell the press teams who would draft and publish official statements, but that feels so impersonal and he wants to feel normal for once. It is their relationship, not a state matter. Henry had immediately agreed.

“Sure,” Henry says, next to him. They are both sitting on the bed and leaning against the headboard. “At the same time?”

Alex nods.

“Bets on which one will call first, Buckingham palace or White House?”

He grins. “White House but only because we are on the same time zone. But your people will definitely be angrier about it.”

“Those are quite good odds,” he agrees, with a lazy smile and nudges him with his shoulder.

They press their phone screens in unison. Alex had written in his caption “ _If you like it, then you should put a ring on it”_ and accompanied it with a bunch of ring emojis.

Henry had laughed when he saw it, but his wasn’t any better. _There is a fire within my soul, and I can hear a (wedding) bell ring._

Alex had laughed so much, he almost fell off the bed. Both of the captions are ridiculous, but it makes him fall in love a bit more with him.

His phone jams almost immediately. “White House wins,” Alex declares happily as the press team’s number starts to flash on the screen after less 60 seconds of posting the photo.

“With a very small margin,” Henry confirms, waving his phone that is ringing as well.

They sit there, in silence, next to each other, nudging each others’ legs as they listen to their respective lectures from very stressed press teams who are convinced that this is not the proper way of doing things, that there is protocol and traditions. Alex was right, White House lets him easier than Buckingham palace lets Henry, but his phone call doesn’t include nearly as much swear words from Zahra as his.

He is still a bit surprised both of the places beat their moms with their calls, but they end up calling right after, and so does Alex’s dad, and they spend hours on the phone talking to their loved ones.

The Instagram announcement bites them in the ass in the end because White House and Buckingham palace press teams, unexpectedly, gang up on them, insisting that if they want to do things the ‘millennial way’, they need to do more than just post photos.

Alex gets it. The engagement is mostly positive publicity, and the PR possibilities are endless. It’s still weird, because it’s _their_ relationship, and the press teams want to milk it as much as their can to their own advantage.

They force them to do _73 questions_ with Vogue and _Buzzfeed’s_ puppy interview. They book them on two separate British talk shows and Alex cannot even remember the names of the shows. One American and one British magazine do profile interview articles about them and the articles always start with a weird paragraph about the way they look each other with love.

It’s terrible and exhausting, but in the end, it’s all so worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Henry loves abba and no one can convince me otherwise. Seriously, I have no idea how this ended up this long and messy, but I hope you like it and my poor attempts of humor!


	29. Champagne

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 29!

December 29th, 2023

“Would you believe me if I said it is yet another fruit basket?” Alex asks, when he walks into their living room, holding a massive and colourful fruit basket in his arms.

“I wish I didn’t believe you, but that looks suspiciously lot like one,” Henry says, in defeated voice as he glances at the enormous monstrosity. “There should be room in the kitchen,” he adds, as Alex frantically tries to look for a place where to put it down.

The thing is Alex was not prepared for this. On any level. He expected that they might get less than enthusiastic comments about their engagement from the press and public, but he did not expect that their home would be invaded by metric ton of engagement presents.

He didn’t expect any of those. It would have made sense if they have held some sort of engagement party, but they didn’t. Their siblings and friends took them out to eat and celebrate, before they left for DC, and they were perfectly content with that. Still, following morning after their announcement, the gifts started arriving and they have not stopped yet.

“It is only the 11th fruit basket we have received,” Alex tells him, with mock cheer, as he collapses next to him on the couch.

He glances around the living room that has started to look more like a storage room for cheese platters, fruit baskets and champagne bottles.

He groans softly next to him.

“Wanna get drunk on champagne and eat your body weight’s worth of fruits and cheese?” Alex asks, nudging his shoulder with his own.

His eyes are full of affection as he looks at him. “I’m afraid we have no other choice,” he replies, deadpan, and gets up to retrieve the wine glasses from the kitchen cupboard.

Alex grabs the closest bottle of champagne and examines it and the small card that has been attached to the bottle neck with a string. “This is from your people,” he tells him with a grin, as Henry sits next to him and places the glasses to the small available space on their coffee table. “British Embassy sends their love.”

He rolls his eyes, but there is a small smile persistently staying on his lips. “Who would have thought embassies have the authorization to send engagement gifts?”

Alex opens the bottle and grimaces at the popping sound that follows. “No one. I don’t even know if that is really a thing,” he replies, and pours their glasses almost full.

Henry picks his glass up. He bites his bottom lip. “I’m glad that people are happy for us, but is it wrong to hope that they will stop sending gifts?”

Laughter bubbles out of his throat. “Nope, but Cash texted me earlier that they have 35 parcels and counting, waiting for a security check,” he tells him, almost remorsefully.

“If it is more cheese or champagne, I might cry,” he declares, in a quiet voice, but accepts a tiny piece of cheese when Alex offers it to him.

He sits right next to him and leans into his frame. He rests his head against his shoulder and clinks their glasses together. “We can cry together.”

It is a truly ridiculous dilemma to have, too many engagement gifts that just keep on coming, but he is glad that at least it is him whom he is suffering with.

“What would your dream wedding be like?” Henry asks, abruptly, breaking the silence and immediately taking a sip of his drink.

“Good question,” he exhales, softly. But then he grins at him. “A drinking game, every time we agree about a wedding detail, we will take a gulp.”

Henry chuckles, but his eyes are gleaming with happiness. “Alright.”

Alex considers his first answer for a moment. “My dream wedding would be with you,” he eventually says, and he cannot keep the beaming smile away from his face.

“Excellent answer,” he whispers, “and mine obviously with you.”

“Drink,” he says, and takes a big gulp of his champagne. It tastes bitter and quite terrible, but he doesn’t complain. He has drunk worse tasting drinks than this.

Henry also drinks, but it is followed by a frown, and he is pretty sure he is not the biggest fan of this particular champagne, either.

“It would be summer,” Alex muses and he takes his hand in his.

“I’d prefer spring,” he whispers back.

“We shall compromise to May,” he replies, without missing a beat.

“Fine,” he says with a sigh, but he sounds only fond.

They drink again. The champagne tastes a little better this time on his tongue.

“Maybe one of those ready-made twenty dollar cakes from the supermarket so that no one can be upset if it gets destroyed,” he whispers amusedly.

Henry sputters out a laugh and it sounds so genuine and free. Alex loves that laughter and it always warms his heart that he is able to make it happen.

“That’s a very tempting option,” he says, “and we are definitely not using 75 000 dollars on the cake. That’s a gross use of taxpayer’s money,” he says, and affection is shining through his voice. “Drink up.”

Alex cannot help but grin at him, as he manages to swallow the champagne down. “I love you.”

He doesn’t even mean to say it aloud. The feeling of it is just so strong and he feels almost delirious with happiness, and he genuinely wants to tell him it, and he wants to use every chance he gets.

“I love you, too,” he replies, and he kisses his temple. “A lot more than I can ever say.”

He closes his eyes for a moment, and simply savours the warmth and contentedness that he currently feels. “Where would you want to get married?”

“Not in the Abbey,” he replies almost immediately. He keeps his gaze focused on the huge cheese platter next to the champagne bottle. “I used to always imagine that it would be in one of the castles’ gardens.”

“Sounds lovely,” he says, sincerely. He stares at the bubbles of his drink. “For me, the lake house in Texas.”

“That’s a great choice, too,” he says, gently. He sighs deeply and squeezes his hand tighter. “I’m sorry it cannot be like that.”

Alex places the champagne glass back to the table, so that he can cup his face with both hands. He lets his fingers stroke his cheekbones. “Hey, that’s not your fault. I would marry you in a dumpster, and hence, I will marry you in the Westminster Abbey.”

His smile is timid but pleased. “I’m flattered and my ancestors are rolling in their graves,” he deadpans, quietly.

Alex kisses him. His lips are warm, and his mouth tastes like champagne, but he doesn’t care. He keeps stroking his jawline and Henry is wrapping his hand around him, and pulling him closer. He lets his hand run along his shoulder blades and he melts into his touch, and all of it is just is filled with adoration and pure, uncontrollable love.

When they finally pull away, Henry looks like he is deep in his thoughts. “I could ask if we didn’t have to do the whole internationally broadcasted aspect of it,” he says slowly. “It’s not an obligation, more of a tradition, really. And I’m not the first in line to the throne,” he adds, with a warm smile.

Alex has to admit that it sounds good. He would like to have a small and private wedding, an intimate one, just with their loved ones, and being displayed on tv on a global scale really doesn’t match with that dream. But he is also aware that it might be impossible.

“A wedding rebellion,” he concludes with a shit-eating grin, “I’m in.”

Henry’s smile is dazzling, and they take a gulp of their glasses in unison. As soon as he manages to put the glass down again, there is a quick knock on their door. Alex buries his face against the couch cushions and groans.

Henry just laughs at him, but he goes to open the door. He swiftly returns with a huge bouget of different, bright coloured tulips. “Flowers this time,” he says, but Alex is suspicious as soon as he notices that Henry is holding his other hand behind his back. “And a cheese platter,” he informs, revealing the item he held behind his back, but it looks like he is stifling down a laughter as he hands it to him, as he disappears into the kitchen.

Alex looks at the platter, currently placed on his lap, a little defeatedly. Then he notices the small card attached to it.

_Congratulations! All our best, Sofia and Carlos_

It doesn’t take him long to connect the dots after seeing the recipients, and he is already fumbling his phone out of his pocket. He immediately opens the group chat for the ordinary-people-married-into-the-royal-families.

_How many fruit baskets / cheese platters / champagne bottles we should expect???_

He sends the message and just stares at the screen of his phone. He can see that multiple people are already writing their replies.

_We got 68 when we got engaged_

The first reply is from Elsa who married a Danish prince a couple years ago.

_Lucky bastards, we got 87_

Alex pinches the bridge of his nose as he reads the message from Benjamin, who married a duchess from Liechtenstein last year.

More people send their replies, and all of the numbers are way over fifty.

He types and sends another one.

_So this is just some twisted payback for the injustice that you all suffered?_

It does not take long until he receives a new message.

_Eye for an eye, cheese platter for cheese platter is quite fitting description_

This time it is from Louisa, who married a Dutch prince more than a decade ago. Alex briefly wonders how this became his life when his phone pings again.

_We are happy for you guys, but it’s your turn. Besides, it is a truly thrilling feeling when you get to send your first engagement gift!_

It is from Haruto, who married into Japanese royal family three years ago.

_You were our first cheese platter, it was so much fun!!_

It is, unsurprisingly, Sofia, who married a Spanish prince last spring.

_I think I hate you all a little_

Yet, he smiles as he types it out. It’s nice to have friends, even if they don’t meet unless there is a state visit or a royal wedding, funeral or heirs’ naming ceremonies. It is surprisingly often, and it is comforting to know that there are people who consider him as friend and are going through similar things.

_You’re officially one of us!!_

It is sent by Frederick who is married to a Belgian princess.

_Please keep us updated how many you receive_

It is from Aranya who has been married to a Thai prince for five years.

_We need the statistics!!_

This time, it is from Nils who is married to the Swedish crown princess.

_We sent you the biggest fruit basket we could find_

Alex reads the message that Martha sent to the group chat. He has actually gotten to know her during the years, and she is sweet and lovely, and Alex gets along with her, but he still groans.

_I will keep you updated on our suffering_

He types and closes the group chat when Henry walks back into the living room. It is a huge group chat and due to the time zones and everything, the discussions can last for hours and Alex doesn’t have the energy for it.

He gets up and hugs Henry. “According to the group chat, there is a lot more to come,” he says against his neck and presses a kiss there before he pulls away. Henry still has his arms loosely wrapped around his waist.

“The mysterious group chat,” Henry says, smiling mischievously.

The first rule of it was that you didn’t show it to your significant others. Mostly the messages were just ridiculous and silly remarks about the traditions and customs that different royal families had. Sometimes they made fun of their royal spouses, but in a loving way, and they also share the happiest and best moments of their lives.

Alex hums. “They are all a menace. Also, Martha and your brother have apparently sent the biggest fruit basket they could find, and it has not yet arrived,” he explains, but he cannot help but chuckle at the absurdity of the situation. 

Henry squeezes his eyes shut. “Unbelievable,” he says, but his smile sounds a tiny bit delighted and Alex understands why. “We could always add to the wedding invitations that don’t you even dare think about gifting us cheese.”

“I don’t think that would stop them,” he admits, “but we could just say that we don’t want any wedding gifts, and they can donate whatever money they wanted to use on gifts to the shelters.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” he says, softly. He feels how he places a kiss on the top of his head, among his curls.

“I have my moments,” he murmurs, but he holds the tip of his chin and turns his head tenderly, so that he looks at him. “And I was about to say, before we were interrupted, that I’m not that stressed about the wedding. If we have to do it on tv, then so be it, but it will be perfect as long as you are there with me.”

“The feeling is mutual,” he whispers and just as he is about to kiss him, there is another sharp knock on the door.

“If we pretend that we are not here, do you think they would go away?” Alex mutters against his chest.

“We could try,” he says, slowly and clearly amused. “But it is your security guard, and he has a key, and he will use it.”

He kisses the top of his head again, before he disappears to open the door.

“Hey,” he says, and Alex can hear that Cash is trying his best not to laugh, but he is failing spectacularly. “I’m afraid it is more cheese platters.”

“Oh, wonderful,” Henry says, rather solemnly, but apparently Cash’s laughter is contagious, and Alex cannot help but laugh, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The group chat returns and I really have no excuses for this, I hope you like it!


	30. Lucky charm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 30!

31st of December, 2023

”Show me yours,” Alex asks, in a soft voice.

The annual New Year’s Eve party is already on full swing, and even though they are sitting on a desolated corridor of the White House, he can hear the faint thumping of the music and people’s chatter.

It is a fun party, but his voice feels already hoarse from yelling over the music and his feet hurt from dancing. He has drunk a couple of glasses of champagne, but it is not enough to make him tipsy enough to forget his exhaustion.

Besides, traditionally, taking a break from the New Year’s Eve party, has led to great things.

Henry reaches into his pocket and pulls out a deformed piece of tin. It is small and it glisters underneath the lights of one of the way too many Christmas trees that the White House corridors have. Alex studies it and looks up to Henry.

“It doesn’t look like anything,” he tells him with a brilliant grin. He pulls his own from the pocket of his dress pants and places it next to his on his palm. “Mine isn’t any better.”

Nora and June had been in charge of planning the party, and he and Henry had only arrived yesterday evening after they had been on the phone for the better part of the day, trying to figure out where and how they could donate majority of their ninety-three fruit baskets and cheese platters.

Alex is a little bummed out that he couldn’t take part in the party planning, because it is one of his favourite traditions, but he had been busy with course work, but they had organized an amazing party and even gotten one of those fortune-telling stalls.

The shiny deformed pieces of tin resting on his palm are the result of the fortune-telling because the stall they had hired was specialised on molybdomancy. They had wanted to try it too, because it sounded fun and Nora and June had gone through the trouble of organizing it and they practically dragged both of them to the stall.

The guy who ran the stall, explained that the tradition goes back to Ancient Rome, but it is still common in many European countries during New Year’s Eve. It sounded fascinating and the process included a piece of molten tin being dropped into cold water and it solidifying into certain shape and interpretation of the future year happens on the basis of the shape.

Henry tilts his head slightly as he examines the pieces. “I have the brochure somewhere,” he says, and reaches into his breast pocket and pulls out a tiny brochure, which is supposed to help with the interpretation.

He hands it to him, and he skims it through quickly. “Okay, if has bubbles, it is supposed to mean money,” he reads out.

Henry’s piece of tin is wrinkly and his own is a bit lumpy, but none of them can be described as bubbly. “No bubbles,” he concludes, too.

“It means misfortune if it they are fragile or broken,” he continues and glances at the pieces. His own looks more bulky and Henry’s has an odd spherical shape.

“Is it peculiar that I’m a little relieved that they are not?” Henry murmurs, but he sounds amused.

Alex places his hand on his knee and traces circles with his thumb on there. The fabric of his pants feels smooth underneath his fingers. “Superstitious maybe, but it would be nice if luck was on our side.”

“It has been so far,” he replies, softly, and his eyes are glistering with affection. Alex presses a quick kiss against his jawline.

“I know,” he says back, gently. “If it resembles a ship, it means travelling. Those don’t resemble ships in the slightest.”

“More like shipwrecks?” He suggests and turns the pieces slightly around.

“Shipwreck probably isn’t the best omen,” Alex muses with an amused huff. The pieces do not particularly resemble shipwrecks, either. They are merely deformed pieces of tin, and Alex cannot distinguish any recognizable shapes from them.

“Should we just interpret that these mean that we get to spend more time together if we do not have to travel,” he says, wistfully.

“Excellent interpretation, babe,” he replies, with a dazzling grin. “Key means great things about careers or getting married,”

“Good thing that we didn’t schedule the wedding yet,” he shoots back, and tries to bite down a smile. They do not resemble keys either.

“If it resembles a horse, then it should mean a new car. We don’t have a car to begin with it and I’m indifferent to horses in general.”

“Fortunately for you, love, these do not resemble horses, not even in the abstract way.”

“Good,” he laughs, “If it is a woman’s head, it means we will get into a fight with our neighbours.”

“This slightly resembles a head, but I suppose we can ignore it,” he says, holding up his own piece of tin. The spherical shape on the other side sort of reminds him of a skull.

“Let’s ignore it,” he agrees, returning his attention to the list.

He actually likes their neighbours, especially the elderly couple who lives next to them, and always bring them pastries when they accidently bake too much. Henry has probably given them as much pastries back.

The list is endless, but he skims it through. “Horseshoe or numbers mean happy marriage,” he adds playfully.

He sputters out a beatific laughter. “I do not see those either.”

Alex closes the brochure and places it on his lap. “Okay, maybe we shouldn’t base our marriage on once-melted pieces of metal from a fortune teller,” he jokes. He slides his hand a little higher on his thigh.

“That is a compelling point,” he agrees quietly. He kisses his temple softly. “I don’t think I require a fortune-teller to know that we will be happy.”

Alex’s heart flutters.

“Yeah, and those are incomprehensible,” he agrees, poking his own piece.

Henry stares at him, but he rearranges the two pieces on his palm, by turning them around. “At least they fit together,” he points out as he pushes the pieces closer together.

The pieces look wildly different and he would have never thought about combining the pieces, but they do fit. Like small puzzle pieces, and they seem to make more sense as one big piece than as separate ones. Or at least, Alex finds it prettier that way.

“It doesn’t mention anything about that, but we can interpret it as a good sign,” he adds, with a sigh. He leans against him and their shoulders are bumping together.

“Our fates fit together,” he suggests with an enamoured tone.

“Do you believe we ended up together because of fate?” Alex asks, abruptly. He knows that they had the discussion about soulmates a little while ago, but in his book, fate is a completely different concept, and he is curious.

He considers his answer for a moment. He keeps studying the Christmas tree as he ponders it. “No. The circumstances that allowed us to meet, or to destroy the cake, might have been fate, but I think rest of it required conscious effort.”

Alex heart soars as he listens to him. The idea of fate has always bugged him because it takes away the agency of a person. Rips away the free will. Falling in love with Henry had been effortless process once he got to know the real him, but he cannot imagine that any abstract force in the universe could have made him fall in love with him.

Henry made him fall in love with him, no one or nothing else. Sure, they gravitated towards each other, but he likes to think it was simply because of themselves.

“Damn right it did,” he chuckles. He curls his fingers around his hand and brings it closer to his own face. “And way too many flights across the Atlantic.”

“True.”

Alex kisses his knuckles. “And I still love you on purpose.”

A delighted smile spreads on his lips. “I know, and I do, too. With all the intention in the world.”

He places a few more tender kisses on his knuckles. He glances at the intertwined pieces of tin. “Maybe we should keep those as lucky charms.”

Henry nods. “I feel quite lucky, right now,” he whispers as he curls his fingers around the tin pieces and kisses him, hard, and it immediately sends a tingle down his spine. He lets his hand slide up to his hipbone. The kiss is soft, but his lips feel warm and their foreheads keep bumping together, and something flutters in his chest.

“I bet I feel luckier,” he eventually whispers against his lips.

“You want to argue? Because I have quite convincing arguments,” he chuckles and gently strokes his cheek.

“Me too,” he says, but he brings their lips back together before he has a chance to present any of his arguments.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was pretty vague once again, but we used to do the tin melting thing when I was a child and I thought it would be fun to write about!


	31. Fireworks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 31!

31st of December, 2020

The night is cold, but not as cold as one might expect late December to be. The air is definitely brisk, and the slight breeze is making Alex’s cheeks hurt, but he doesn’t mind. The night sky is clear, and he can faintly see some of the brightest stars. 

The coldness is giving him a good excuse to lean against Henry and steal some of his body heat. Sure, Alex’s wool coat is warm enough, but Henry is much more appropriately dressed for DC winter nights than he is, because has wrapped himself in a huge, soft, woolly scarf. He has his arms loosely wrapped around Alex, and the scarf also warms his back and neck comfortably.

Another one of the fireworks makes a booming sound and illuminates the sky and the White House’s lawn with shades of red and gold. It’s pretty and Alex feels so calm and content at the moment. The White House New Year’s party was a lot fun, and it is still going on in full swing based on the sounds that carry through the night to the outside, but still, he appreciates these quiet in-between moments they have just for two of them.

It is also possible that he is feeling a bit sentimental and sappy since they are standing under the same particular tree than a year ago.

More fireworks go off in the sky, green and bright blue, but Alex is no longer paying attention to them, as the train of his thoughts took a totally different direction. He turns his head to the right, looking over his shoulder, to see Henry.

“A weird question, but when is our anniversary?”

Henry opens his mouth, but then closes it abruptly, and laughs softly. “I do not know, honestly.”

He starts to laugh, too, and turns around, but he doesn’t move that much further. “Exactly. There are too many damn possibilities. Where are we supposed to start the counting?”

Their relationship is still new, but they have gone through so much together already, it feels like it has been longer than that, and yet is difficult to distinguish the start of it all. It feels all tangled, in retrospective. He has no clue how long his feelings were growing and developing before they started hooking up.

“First kiss?” Henry suggests quietly, but he looks thoughtful.

He does make a valid point. They didn’t agree on any sort of relationship on the night of the first kiss, but there were no one else in his mind or heart after that. Something definitely started unfolding between them, and there was no going back.

“The state dinner?” Alex pipes in, with affectionate half-smile.

At least, back then, they were already on same frequency that they wanted each other, even if he was still denying that feelings had anything to do with it.

“Paris?” Henry suggests, softly, and more fireworks explode in the distance.

Alex shrugs. “Also a possibility.”

It feels almost wrong to try and place a date when they began. It was just a tangled mess of threads that led together, and it is almost impossible to point out the exact point when everything changed. His love grew and he does not know when it started existing. Each and every moment was, and is, important and holds its own value.

He wraps his arms around Henry’s waist. “Is it bad that we don’t know?”

“I think it is not a bad thing, necessarily.” He strokes the space between his shoulder blades. “We didn’t exactly follow any traditional pattern when it comes to us,” he says, keeping a small pause, “admittedly it was slightly messy, but it was still us. If there was a specific date, we would know it.”

Slightly messy is one way to put it.

Suddenly, Henry’s grin gets wider. “Or do you want to get into an existential crisis of what can be considered as our first date?”

Alex shakes his head furiously, making him laugh. “Nope, definitely not, but anniversary could still be nice, you know.”

For some reason, he feels almost foolish admitting it, but he likes the idea of it. Sure, it is just a day like any other, but it would still hold significance and be something that is theirs. To look back to the moment that something irreversible happened and celebrate that they have gotten the opportunity to spend yet another year with each other. 

“Yes, and I think we can decide it ourselves,” he says, quietly and softly, nearly against his own scarf, but his hands have returned around him, too.

“Definitely,” he agrees, “what’s your choice?”

“I cannot fix on the hour, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation, it is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun,” he says, looking straight at him for the whole time, and something melts in his chest.

“Jane Austen?” Alex guesses, because she’s Henry’s favourite and he has a habit of quoting her work when he is feeling particularly sentimental and Alex loves it.

Henry merely nods, as he smiles a tiny, but happy smile.

“A sophisticated way of saying that you have been in love with me since forever,” he deadpans, “but that is no real help with deciding.”

He kisses his forehead. “You have been on my mind for years, but my mind absolutely refused not to think about you after the state dinner.”

Alex’s heart skips a beat, and he grins, dazzlingly. “Same for me with you.”

All those late-night calls and long emails had been because of Henry being on his mind, constantly and persistently, and because of that, he wanted to share all sort of details about his own life and to eagerly discover everything there was to discover about him.

Maybe it is the date of the state dinner, then, but he isn’t feeling upset about the fact that their anniversary is, at best, an estimation or guess.

Henry closes the distance between them, and his lips are cold, and Alex knows his are freezing cold too, but it is still a soft kiss, and something warm definitely spreads in his chest.

“I love you,” he whispers softly, mostly against his lips.

“I know, love you, too,” Alex replies quietly and closes his eyes. “Are you going to run away now? For old time’s sake? Should I threaten you with no-fly list again?” He jokes, as he opens his eyes.

“Not this time,” he breathes out.

He merely meant to tease him, but his eyes glister with something graver now, as he keeps holding his gaze. He may have struck a chord with the attempted joking. “I’m sorry, that sounded harsh,” he says, and tenderly strokes his jawline.

He half-chuckles. “I did flee the entire continent, twice, so maybe it’s just fair.”

“You did come back,” he says, “and you’re here now.”

His smile gets gradually wider and brighter. “And I think I’m done running. I feel like I am where I’m supposed to be,” he adds, and he sounds rather enamoured.

He trusts Henry with everything he has. He knows that they both messed up in the beginning, and that there are no guarantees that they won’t keep messing up, but he feels secure in believing that they won’t be messing up in a way that would diminish anything they feel for each other. He still feels forever about him, maybe more than ever before.

Everything between them feels too strong to be defeated.

“Good,” he kisses the corner of his mouth. “I feel like I’m home, too, and I’m not talking about that,” he says, nodding towards the White House.

He exhales softly. “You have my entire heart, and it is yours as long as you want it.”

Alex smirks and he feels so happy he could combust at any given moment. “You ain’t getting it back.”

“I could name a few more terrible fates than that,” he says with a lopsided smile, “and I know I have yours, too.”

“I wouldn’t want it any other way,” he murmurs.

He knows he should marvel at the brightness and beauty of the fireworks that keep exploding up in the sky, but he cannot look away from him, and the way he is looking at him is way more beautiful and stunning than any firework. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This may or may not be the result of me trying to figure out when their anniversary is. Anyway, it is the last one and I want to thank again everyone who has read this, left kudos and comments! It means so much to me <3 I hope this has brought some sort of joy to your december, and I know for a fact that my month has been better because of this little project. It has been so much fun and I hope you had fun too!

**Author's Note:**

> All the mistakes are mine. Happy december everyone!  
> The title is obviously borrowed from Taylor Swift's Lover.


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